We Who Were Made To Love
by LikeCherryWinter
Summary: Voldermort is dead. A way is paved for an obsession previously sequestered, and a new love begins to grow. Hermione Granger. Severus Snape. Remus Lupin.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer – I do not own Harry or Hermione or Ron…only Severus. Yup. He's mine. Mine, I tell you, mine!

. 

Oh, okay. I'll give him back when I'm through.

Author's Notes – Yays! Me first fanfic ever! Hope ye all enjoy the tale!

----

Silence.

It was not what he expected.

The body lay before him as if to promote his humanity-the illusion. It was a soul-less corpse, then, as it had been living. Air hung like nylon-thick and suffocating in a cloud of dust and magic and sweat and the blood ran across his sneakers as he watched in disbelief. It was Muggle television. It was not happening.

"Harry."

He did not hear. He did not see or feel or touch the thick, thick air. He stood, lost in the flotsam of his own disjunction. There was not yet a finality in the word "dead" as it clamored about in his ears.

"Harry."

A glimmer of recognition.

Eyes that saw the watery form of the Headmaster, his long, gray beard matted with the long, red river beneath his shoes. He felt a pressure on his shoulder. Palpable. The haze of dream began to lift like fog in the sunray, a warm, joyous heat simmering noisily in his stomach at the triumph, the loss, and the intensity of the moment.

"Harry, you did it." The Headmaster leaned haphazardly against Harry's shoulder, smiling-twinkling as he had done so often above a bowl of lemon drops or the festivities of a House Cup. "You all have done it."

More shapes. More figures whirling about in Harry's vision. Ron. Hermoine. Lupin. Haggrid. Ginny. Spinning and floating through the tears of his eyes. He was elated. Tragic. Empty. Filled. Dead and Reborn. And reborn until the dawn of reason started to stammer in his mind-

Voldermort is dead.

----

It was in the darkness that he found his solace.

It, like rain, seemed to wash over him-cleansing the sickness of his mind in the precious silence of absent light. He lingered there, in the dungeon, brewing his thoughts like the careful potions he adjured. As smoke from the cauldron, hanging abstractly in the air with his judgments and thoughts, he sat at the leather-backed chair, watching the cold fireplace.

Voldermort was dead. Dumbledore, after many persuasive arguments, had finally convinced the Heroic Potter Prat of Severus' enduring innocence regarding the fabrication of the Headmaster's "death"-quite really as if Severus had actually cared what the idiot thought of him.

Severus stiffened then; the students that had died-he regarded them with a manner of respect one might think unknowing upon him. Cho Chang. Colin Creevy. Gryffindors. Hufflepuffs. Ravenclaws. Yes, even Slytherins held their share of honest blood upon the field and their bodies in the Hogwarts soil.

He thought briefly on his Unbreakable Vow-smirking. A quick potion to stop the heart of the old man upon one wordless spell, and another to revive him after the casting of the Unforgivable-essentially, and for all technical purposes, Severus Snape, for a period of exactly five seconds, had killed Albus Dumbledore. Other cautions had been taken- another spell to make the Headmaster's pulse undetectable to the frantic Harry Potter, and another, cast by Dumbledore himself, to increase the piqued color of the skin. And as for the fire upon the body? It was mere child's play, of course, for a great wizard to combat with any number of spells, wand-less or no.

And, in the truest Potter style, not one foot let he step on Hogwarts or his muggle residence before he found and destroyed the remainder of the Dark Lord's horcruxs-the locket of Salazar Slytherin, found in the posession of Lucious Malfoy's distressed wife, the cup of Helga Hufflepuff, astonishingly, among the items of Mrs. Longbottom, which were so fervently presented to Neville upon each visit to the hospital, the diary of Rowena Ravenclaw, regretablly thanks to Kreacher who nearly lost his life defending the damned thing, and, finally, the heart of Godric Gryffindor, which was kept preserved in the wall of Hogwarts above which hung the origional banner of Gryffindor House. Voldermort, it seemed, had infected his soul like a disease into the organ and Harry, the dribbling speck, had been reluctant to distroy that last artifact.

Of course, how easily he had plundered the Slytherin locket. The boy was reckless, Severus thought.

And now, he, the dark and brooding, once again, Potion Master, sat idly by the empty fireplace, contemplating his life as a war hero.

And yet, it occurred to him, rather distastfully, that it was not thoughts of victory nor freedom that let him, for the breifest of moments, relish happiness.


	2. The Gift

Author's Note - Thank you, guys, for your kind reviews. I hope that my story can meet your expectations.

----

She smiled cheerfully and gave the badge a loving _pat-pat_.

Head Girl.

Divine-she paroled the hall, lilting her steps to the sound of some silent rhythm in her mind, badge flashing and playing the light respectively. To the students of Hogwarts, she was an accomplished war-hero, a brilliant prude, and an authoritative figurehead. To her friends, Hermione was the bushy-headed brain with feet. The loyal. The brave. The absolutely odd and lovable 'Mione.

"_Head Girl_" 'Mione.

Something in her had logically registered this particular elation as nothing more than a childish accomplishment-the rest of her stayed just too damn proud to care. _Head Girl_! And Harry Head Boy, too. Once again, in a perfectly memorized motion, she plucked the badge up from her robes and gazed into the marked reflection of her joyously-child face, feeling the hellish summer slip farther and farther away, like sand through the slips of her fingers as the sun came down to warm her.

There would be some days, of course, that the guilt of the war would weight her down until she felt her lungs would explode. But, other days, like that particular morning after watching the curious first-years buckle under the sorting hat the previous night and gazing unabashedly into the night-abyss as she crossed the lake for the last time, Hermione felt a sense that the world, having previously been upturned on its axis, was beginning to right itself.

"'Mione!"

The red-headed mound of freckles stood and grinned like the Chester cat that caught the mouse. Hermione gazed at him, curiously, crossing the threshold of the Great Hall, the glittering ambiance of her badge proceeding each step. Neville peeped quizzically up at her too, pausing a spoon over his brimming bowl of porridge. In fact, an entire heard of foolishly smiling Gryffindors beamed cryptically up at the, now, bewildered Hermione.

"It came just a few minutes ago," Harry explained as the Head Girl took her usual seat, eyes now grazing over the _thing_-the cause of all this curious nonsense.

It sat rather indifferently in an empty brass plate, shimmering the morning light of the Hall. The heart-shaped box was ornate-though classically, rather than the plastic Valentine's gifts to which the youths were so accustomed. Along the mahogany edge was carved an entire scene of angels and crucifixes and wholly Catholic paraphenilla and ornate with specks of gold-a golden heart on the cross, golden angel wings, a wholly golden rose bush-small props in the strangely gothic scene. On the top of the box was an equally lavish depiction of the sun and moon fused into one just below a stunningly display of the word "Hermione"-strangely different from the other carvings, as if penned by entirely different hands.

Hermione, unmoving, gazed at the box.

"Well?" Ron prodded, his arms crossed triumphantly across his chest. To see the fully bookish little creature reduced to such a..._feminine _display was sensational. "Open the bloody thing."

She was hesitant. "What if it's cursed?"

"It could be a portkey!" someone interjected.

"It's just some secret admirer," countered a wholly female tone.

"What's this, then?" A distant, pleasant tone beamed behind Hermione. She turned, blushing, and set her eyes unsteadily upon the Headmaster.

"It came by owl this morning," Harry remarked, refusing to be merely the observer. Hermione shot him an incredulous look, to which he promptly remarked: "I have no idea who's owl, Hermione, I swear."

Dumbledore, eyes twinkling on and off brightly like two Muggle radio towers, reached across the fuming seventh-year girl to place the tip of his wand across the brim of the box. He paused. And oh, then, how he smiled. They all smiled at the fiercely vexed Hermione, some giggling over fruit or pastries, others trying to mask it over the brim of their goblets. None, though, so boldly flashing a row of teeth as Ron. "It's quite harmless, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said, pulling his wand back into the muddled robes and yet making no move to leave his prized position above her right shoulder. "Perhaps you should open your gift, as I'm sure someone has taken great pains in fashioning it."

_Someone I'll promptly hex just as soon as they all stop grinning at me like Crookshanks at the fish bowl_, she thought.

With a sigh, Hermione hesitantly graced one finger along the pointed edge of the box before carefully and slowly lifting away the lid. At the sight of it, nearly ever female at the table gasped.

Except Hermione, of course, who nearly evaporated into a million tiny piqued pieces.

There, in the black velvet lining of the mahogany, were two antique, pearl earrings, dangling in a drop beneath a small, ornate silver setting. The only other occupant of the box, however, was the slightest bit of parchment barring the words; "_For My Cherished_".

----

The Headmaster took his usual seat at the center of the Head Table, eyes brimming with some new mischief.

"What's all this commotion on about, Albus?" Remus inquired, fork dangling in midair as he paused to entertain himself by watching the Headmaster struggle not to let his jovial demeanor proceed into unabashed laughter.

"It seems that Miss Granger has a young admirer in tow," Albus replied before sipping at his pumpkin juice to hide a giggle.

Professor McGonigal brightened at that, her chin lifting proudly at the idea of such a prominent Gryffindor being paid her due tribute. "It's no wonder that Potter his finally come to his senses," she remarked, happily conjuring up images of brave, brilliant, and famous Gryffindor offspring.

Remus chuckled. "I've often wondered whether or not they had finally become an item."

"Quite the contrary, Minerva," Albus interjected, prodding his Berry-Flavored Porridge to keep it from wiggling out of the bowl. "Young Harry is just as puzzled as to who the sender may be as is Miss Granger."

Minerva, hopes dashed, darkened at the idea of a Hufflepuff or even, dare say it, a Slytherin with their eyes on the prized young witch.

Remus could not help feeling much uplifted by this sudden occurrence-freeing his mind momentarily of the crushing burden of the past summer. He found himself gazing quite interestingly at the young Gryffindor girl-woman! How she had grown the past few years had suddenly astonished his old eyes. Seventeen and already had her hair softened into a mature compile of curls and honey kisses. Her fair complection was now brilliantly free of freckles or pimples, only warm white skin that, at the moment, gleamed from her embarrassment. Even more astonishingly had she began to fill the robes with a woman's shapely body.

Briefly, large cinnamon eyes turned to catch his gaze-then looked away hurriedly as Remus pretended to quickly brush crumbs from his lap.

Albus, missing nothing, could only sip his pumpkin juice and beam. "What do you make of the situation, Severus?" he asked, cautiously.

The long, black form beside Remus smirked-a trademark. One hooked nose and two small, black eyes upturned disgustedly. "I do not make the lives of my students my own personal business, Headmaster, as you well know," Snape remarked dryly, watching two long, greasy strands of hair slip just into vision. He hesitated, something flashing briefly in his eyes before composure finally overtook them. "Lupin, are you quite content gawking at certain members of the student body or shall I be obliged to regain the instruction of your classes until you have quite composed yourself?"

----

Author's Note - Ooohooo...I love my nasty Snapey. Please R/R, my lovelies. I think I shall also post the next chapter, as it I have just finished it.


	3. Potions and Tea

Author's Note - Here is the next edition. :) Please enjoy.

----

"For the _last time_, Hermione, I do _not _know whose owl it was-I barely even remember what it looked like! It just dropped the _bloody _box on your plate without so much as a 'How'd do?' and flew off into the ruddy _wild blue 'yonder_!"

Harry sighed and dropped down into his seat, cheeks aflame at the recent outburst from Hermione's incessant questioning. Ron, still menacingly giddy, took his own seat to Hermoine's right, leaving Harry fuming at her left.

"I was only trying to be thorough, Harry," she countered, sitting primly and shooting daggers with her gaze across the table to a gawking group of Gryffindors. "Why don't you mind your own bloody business?" she hissed. Startled, they dispersed and refused to look at her the entire class period.

"What? You mean you're not going to put them on, 'Mione?" Ron prodded the girl in the rib cage. "What's your boyfriend going to think of you now?"

At that, bursts of laughter erupted from the class. Hermione, red-faced and chizzled, rose quickly from her seat, knocking the chair to the floor. "RONALD WEASLEY! YOU ARE POSITIVELY THE MOST OBNOXIOUS, SNOT-NOSED, LOUD-MOUTHED LITTLE FERRET I'VE EVER MET! I DO _NOT _HAVE A BOYFRIEND!"

At that, Professor Lupin, a puzzled little smile on his face, descended into the classroom. "Miss Granger," he began, watching her anger quickly fade into shock, "I believe that will be quite sufficient. Please take your seat."

Hermione, stunned, up-righted her chair and sat complacently. Remus, then, turned a stern eye to Ron. "Not another word, Mr. Weasley," he said, and continued on to the front of the class to begin a lesson about artifacts of protection.

"_During the institution of the wizarding world as a separate community from that of Muggles, certain artifacts, which were meant to be placed under the careful watch of the Ministry of Magic, were abducted, seemingly by Vampires, or, even more absurdly, House Elves. Among the inventory was a crested ring, necklace, goblet..."_

"Hermione." Harry whispered, touching her shoulder lightly. "Sorry I snapped at you..."

"It's all right, Harry." Smiling slightly, she patted his hand. "I know you were just frustrated."

"Me too," Ron interjected, his smile gone. "I didn't mean-"

"You meant to do exactly what you _did_, Ronald," she replied tartly, chin brazenly protruding into the air. "I will not forgive you at present."

The red-head oogled at her, his jaw hanging open in protest. "B-but...b-but...Harry...I..."

"Shut your mouth, Ron," she snapped. "You look like a gaping fish."

----

Severus Snape patrolled the classroom severely that afternoon, leaning over enough cauldrons and cringing shoulders to find himself even more disgusted at humankind than before.

"Ten points from Gryffindor," he snarled nastily over Ron's shoulder, watching the little prat tip entirely too much dried lavender into the Wart-Removing Potion. "I would have suspected our little _hero_ thinks himself too important to follow directions if I weren't already accustomed to his natural ability to blunder every potion that he has attempted to concoct."

At this, Harry stiffened, his face firmly twisted into a loathsome snarl as he watched the brooding Professor cross the room to berate a poor girl lingering too long in the supply cabinet "He's probably just pissed because he needed the potion to remove all the warts off his back," he whispered sharply. Ron promptly stifled a snort, as did a few surrounding Gryffindors.

Hermione, who lingered behind the pair with a trembling Neville, continued to stir her mixture clockwise with the most precise of movements, her wrist gracefully dancing the rod to and fro. "Honestly, Harry," she returned, her voice just above a whisper. "I don't think it's appropriate for a Head Boy to insult a professor. What example are you setting, really?"

"Miss Granger," came a deafening, silky voice from the front of the classroom. "I do not believe that Wart-Removing Potion requires any sort of incantation. You would do well to keep your insufferable little lips sealed." Casually, he returned behind his desk.

"You can't honestly tell me that you have any respect for him, 'Mione?" Ron gave her a queer sort of look, his uneven eyes pleading for her to revolt in disgust.

Her lips pursed together-obviously, she had not yet chosen to forgive him for his little outburst in DADA. "Not that it is any of your business, _Ronald_, but I do respect him."

"Are you _perfectly _incapable of hearing, Miss Granger?" Snape raised an eyebrow, his eyes glittering darkly towards the curly-headed little Gryffindor. "Twenty points from Gryffindor."

Hermione, unsettled, began to evenly slice the Grumsroot.

"How the _hell_ could you say that, Hermione?" Harry leaned towards her, his eyes darkening. "He's a two-faced, greasy-haired, lying little-"

"_Harry_. Really. He's an adult, and a professor. Not to mention his status in the Order was vital to...to our victory. I can't see why you can't just-"

"_Enough_."

Long, dark robes fettered just behind her left shoulder. Hermione froze. _How does he move like that? _she thought as she turned to face him.

"Miss Granger. You have consistently disobeyed my _explicit_ instructions and although I would take _immense _pleasure at demanding your immediate expulsion, I must concede myself to granting you-"

Neville Longbottom, the poor creature, had some sort of uncanny knack at picking the precisely wrong moment.

His hand, which had been holding a rather large amount of powdered werewolf tongue to give to Hermione so that she may measure the proper amount, froze upon the sight of the fuming Potion's Master and, through the trembling of the poor, buck-toothed owner, deposited itself of all its contents...straight into the unprepared cauldron. Thankfully, the explosive matter, after erupting noisily from the pot, contented itself with only covering the Golden Trio, a frozen Mr. Longbottom, and a cold, hard, Dungeon floor.

Professor Snape _crossed _his arms-the overgrown bat. "...to granting you _and_ Mr. Longbottom with two weeks of detention beginning tomorrow night."

----

Hermione was furious.

Black robes fettered behind her quickly progressing form down the eastern-most corridor, bound for the privacy of her Head Girl rooms. _Humiliating! _She found a spot of neglected potion residue on the back of her hand and hurriedly whipped it away with a flick of her wand. _How could I possibly face the Great Hall again?_

It was simple enough, really-she wasn't going to.

Her hunger was slight compared to the immense amount of strength it would take not to strangle Ron upon seeing him. Perhaps Harry would even take pity on her and bring her a sandwich or some fruit. _Really_. She chided herself. Harry was a good boy, of course, but not the brightest when it came to thoughtfulness.

She felt eyes upon her as she passed-either for the explosive cauldron or the breakfast surprise or, quite likely, because she was simply an integral part in the destruction of Lord Voldermort. Actually, it was _vital_ to the cause that Hermione offered them the use of her extreme intelligence and, as found out, powerful magical capability. It was her doing that lead to the Heart of Gryffindor and the Ravenclaw Diary. It was her wand beside Ron and Harry's before darkness fell. And, ultimately, it was she who carried the Boy-Who-Lived to Voldermort's presence after he suffered a blow by the wand of Lucius Malfoy-the only Death Eater to escape punishment by claiming to be under the Imperious enchantment.

Fleetingly, her mind drifted to the intricately carved box that now took residence in her satchel. Who would send her such a gift? It was not her parents, of course, for they would spurn something so frivolous and expensive. Harry had no interest in giving her such things-neither did Ron, for that matter, for she had already clearly established to the red-headed miscreant that she had no interest in him whatsoever with anything past friendship. Viktor Krum was in Azkaban. And...well, after that, it seemed, she had run out of options. No other boy in the school even looked at her as more than a walking dictionary or a brilliant warrior. Hermione could not even see what it was in herself that might attract someone other than a platonic friend. But perhaps it could-

"Hermione?"

Hermione turned abruptly towards reality, not quite aware of how engrossed in thought she had become.

"Professor, I'm so sorry," she remarked, scrambling to help Remus pick up the various rolls of parchment she had obviously knocked out of his hands. She was not even aware that she had collided into him and her cheeks burned with the realization.

"That's quite all right," he replied warmly, collecting his scrolls from the girl and giving her a proper smile. "I should think you wouldn't want to talk the long way to the Great Hall."

"Oh...well, I'm not really going to the Great Hall, actually, Professor."

Lupin hesitated as if to study her reaction. "It's not wise to skip your dinner, Hermione. I've observed that you do that quite enough to spend extra time in the library...although you're not headed in the direction of the library, just now."

She smiled, regarding her shoes. _How would he know about my habits?_ "No, Sir. I was on my way to my rooms." _Of course he knows, Hermione. Who doesn't know you practically live in the Restricted Section? _

Remus paused then, shifting the parchments into a more manageable cluster. "Perhaps...you might like to accompany me to some sandwiches and tea in my study?" He paused. "I would actually like the opportunity to study the...gift you received this morning...if you don't mind of course."

_Oh, perfect_. "Of course," she said, smiling politely. _I do think I could have gone the rest of the year without anyone mentioning that damn box_.

----

"What do you want?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You're quite aware of what I want," the other boy replied.

The first eyed him, leaning against the post of his bed. He seemed pensive and yet quite relaxed. "I suppose it's a good thing that father insisted on my own private rooms," he said.

"I suppose that's all he's good for," said the other.

----

Author's Note - Whoohoo! 3 I loves me an angsty sex scene.


	4. His and Her Urges

Author's Note – Hot off the press, guys! Thank you so much for reading my stories. The reviews have all been great!

…

Michael de Lupin – Thank you very much for your kind encouragement.

Angelic Bladez – I'll never tell who sent her the box! Never! Well…until, of course, that person decides to own up to it. ;)

Viktor Krum's lazyllama101 – Updated! ;)

----

_What the hell is wrong with me?_

Remus hesitated, brushing a hand through his tangled hair. He watched her scanning the rows of books-the arch of her back straining as she reached for the top shelf. He smiled. "You're welcome to borrow anything you like," he said. Quickly, he regretted it. "I mean...what sort of professor would I be if I didn't try to...induce your learning?" _Stupid, stupid. Stop stuttering, idiot, and keep your eyes above her shoulders._

Hermione turned to him and smiled. "You have a wonderful library, Professor."

_Professor_. _You_ _remember that, Remus, old boy. You're her_ professor_, not her damned secret admirer. Speaking of which..._

"Hermoine, I was wondering if I might examine that...box." _Oh, Merlin, keep your dirty mind out of this._ "Albu-The Headmaster informed me that it appeared to be an antique."

Hermione sighed and moved to the satchel she had tossed on her professor's old worn-leather couch. "No one seems to know the owl that delivered it," she said, pulling the dark, wooden object from her bag. She began to chew her bottom lip as she offered the gift to Remus. "I...uh...don't recognize the handwriting inside." A blush.

Remus smiled graciously and took a seat on the couch. Hermione, deciding against passing up the chance to further study the books, returned to stand in front of the rows of bookcases.

The haggard professor turned the box over in his hands, feeling it take up both palms with a powerful weight. "It's most certainly enchanted," he said, "which is really quite...ironic considering its intended purpose."

At this, Hermione turned. "Professor?"

"It's a Devil's Box," he explained. "In medieval times, when the integration of Muggles and Wizards was still present, the Catholic Church sought out a way to calm Muggle fears of the power of our kind. Of course, as you well know, their tactic was burning. However, this torture, as the Catholic powers soon found out, did not usually result in the death of true witches. To complete the...task, it was devised that the young woman's...heart would be removed." He hesitated, watching Hermione's face pale severely. "We cannot change the past, Hermione-only learn from."

She nodded in accordance and took a seat next to him. Remus shifted uncomfortably.

"The heart would then be placed in a box-a box like this that depicted Christian scenes. It was believed, then, that the witch could never leave the gates of hell." Remus paused to snort. "Muggle logic."

Hermione looked down at the box, twisting her hands in her lap. "Professor...what about the..." Hesitantly, she made a motion to remove the lid.

Remus complied, pulling the top from the box and setting it carefully aside. His lips tightened. "Someone obviously cares a great deal for you, Hermione," he said.

The girl paled. "I...I thought it might have some...enchantment." Her eyes scanned over the pearls. "My first guess was...well, it was rather absurd, really..."

Remus looked up to catch her gaze. _Merlin. I would never have guessed it at her age..._"I believe you're quite right," he said. "You're first inclination-you believe it is a Lost Artifact, don't you?"

The girl nodded. "It would fit the description, Professor. I remember reading in _Hogwarts: A History _that it was suspected one, if not several, of the artifacts were hidden here to prevent detection by the Ministry of Magic."

"It would be a brilliant place to hide them." Remus sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. "With all the power generated from a building filled with hundreds of wizards, it would go virtually undetected, even by prying sources."

_And just what prying sources managed to find it?_ he wondered.

He looked at her, shaken by his own instinct to touch her. Was he going mad? _I fail to remember the precise time at which Miss Granger was taken from the student category and placed into the "shag-able" section_. Bitterly, he stifled the urge to laugh. He needed to get a grip on himself again. It was not all together unfathomable that a newly matured and beautiful little thing like Hermione would awaken such feelings in him-it was only imperative that he suppress these urges. "I am not quite sure what these…objects were made to do, Hermione. However, I do suggest that you investigate the matter yourself-I do not feel any harm shall come to you from them. Do feel free to use any resource of mine to aid you in your search."

She smiled.

----

Hermione sighed, strolling leisurely through the halls. It was not quite eleven, and yet the light emitted from the tip of her wand was sufficient in guiding her towards her destination. _A Lost Artifact?_ The conformation from Professor Lupin was all she needed to assure herself in her instinct. A text-book display pronounced itself in her mind:

_Lost Artifacts are objects of extreme power that were stolen from Wizarding officials at the dawn of the segregation of mankind into Muggles and Non-Muggles. These objects, each holding different uses and enchantments, are a very rare find and hardly will a curious Witch or Wizard discover enough about them from any library to adequately ascertain their true nature…_

Of course, Hermoine Granger was no amateur when it came to research. She was, in fact, quite confident in her abilities to find _something_ on the subject. Perhaps, then, the only thing left to be unsure about was the giver of such a strange gift…and the nature of the giver's intentions…

"Miss Granger."

The figure that stepped from darkness seemed all too content to linger in it a bit more. "What are you doing out of your dormitory after hours?"

_Of course_. Even a Head Girl was required back in her chambers by ten. It seemed that she had lost track of her time with Re-Professor Lupin. _Odd. I have never had the urge to call him by his first name..._ "I apologize, Professor Snape," she said, lowering her eyes for good measure. "I must have lost track of time. Professor Lupin and I-"

"It is highly inappropriate for a student to stay with any professor after hours. What _were_ you…_accomplishing_ so late?" Snidely, he curled his lips down at her.

Hermione blushed. _Had he really just insinuated…_? "I…we were discussing a matter of my own personal business," she said, a quiver in her voice. Actually, they had spent a rather enjoyable evening together eating sandwiches and discussing her future in the Wizarding World, among other things in light conversation. Hermione had never realized just how easy Remus was to talk to.

Severus Snape raised an eyebrow curiously. "I'm sure you were…Nevertheless, I am obliged to assign you another two weeks of detention. Do try to be punctual tomorrow evening."

At that, the billow of robes descended once again into the darkness.

----

The portrait swung open grumpily. "Are you quite aware of the hour, young lady?" it snapped after Hermione, muttering bitterly under its breath as it closed once more with a light _click_.

"Hermione?" Harry stood up in his chair, an agitated Crookshanks tumbling out of his lap and to the floor with an ambiance of loud cat-curses. "Where have you been?"

"I went to see Professor Lupin…well, actually, he approached me about my…_gift_ this morning. He wanted to study it."

"Five hours of…studying?"

"Honestly, Harry," she snapped, "not you, too?"

He crossed his arms, a puzzled sort of expression on his face.

"Professor Snape caught me in the halls and made…assumptions about my visit with Professor Lupin," she explained. "Now I have a month of detention."

The Head Boy snorted and stretched. "Still want to defend him?" he asked sourly.

Hermione gave a slight smirk. "I'm starting to rethink my position on that," she remarked bitterly. Curiously, the girl noticed Harry still wearing his school robes. "And where have you been this evening?"

He shot her a dark glance before she chuckled knowingly.

----

It was nearly one o'clock that morning that Hermione found herself in the mirror, a pair of antique, pearl earrings drooping gracefully against her neck. One hand gathered the tangle of curls into a pile on her head.

"You look ravishing, dear," the mirror said.

Hermione sighed. "I wonder if that's the purpose."

Fleetingly, she recalled something the Professor had said. _Why would the box itself be enchanted?_


	5. Midnight Mirror

Author's Note - Please excuse Professor Lupin. I've made him into pervert. Don't blame JK. Blame me. ;)

Galleena - I know, but I had to use that word.;) I couldn't resist.

Dragons-pain - Here's more! ;D

Rinny08 -Lol. ;) Well, I'm a big supporter of HG/SS. I think you'll find out a little more about that later on. ;)

----

"No."

"Yes."

"_No_."

"_Ye_s."

"I said no."

"I said yes."

"Ronald."

"'Mione."

"I just said _no_."

"'_Mione_!"

Hermione slammed down the cup, sending specks of tea flying across the table.

"_No, Ronald_!"

Ron reddened, stabbing at a piece of sausage with his fork. "Just because I'm not your little secret boyfriend..."

"How many times must I tell you? I do _not_ have a secret boyfriend!"

It was two months after the incident and Hermione could still not hear the end of it. Little progress had been made in her search to discover the purpose of the earrings-even littler, still, was the progress made in discovering the giver. She knew, from her research, that the jewelry would protect her-from what, though, she had not the faintest clue.

"The Christmas Ball is only two months away, Hermione," Harry remarked casually. "I'd have thought you'd already scheduled a date by now." He turned to give her a wry smile. "You were always one to plan ahead."

"I haven't even thought about it," she answered, truthfully. The research for the artifacts, studying for her NEWTs, and, surprisingly enough, the occasional dinner of sandwiches and tea with Professor Lupin had occupied the whole of her time-after she finished her month's worth of detention, that is. Ruefully, she studied the lines on her hands from the numerous hours of non-magical cauldron scrubbing. _I wonder if Remus might know how to get these off_.

Beneath the brim of her tea cup, Hermione positively beamed. She was quite aware that her feelings for her DADA professor had...substantially changed over the last two months. One might call it a little crush. Hermione toyed with the idea of her infatuation. From a logical standpoint, it was not, all together, unexpected. Considering the amount of time which they had taken to spending together and the ease with which Hermione could talk intellectually with him, it seemed a fair match. Of course, Hermione did not delude herself that Remus had any sort of interest in her other than friendly-he was, for the time being, her professor.

She could only hope that in six months, Remus might be willing to re-evaluate their relationship.

_You're thinking about it like it's some sort of potions experiment_, she thought bitterly.

"Change your mind?" Ron asked, watching the Head Girl smiling into her cup. "I knew you'd want me to take you to the dance, 'Mione. I'm not dense."

Harry looked at the red-head. "Actually, Ron, I believe that's just the point."

----

"I'm running out of books, Remus," she said, pacing around the study once more.

Lupin clenched and relaxed a fist. _Letting her call you by your first name, old boy_, he mused. _Very intelligent. _

"Perhaps you should look to other means of research," he suggested before taking a bite of cold sandwich. He could no longer deny to himself how much he looked forward to their evenings together. "Speaking of which, have you ever thought about apprenticeship?"

Hermione paused in her walk, a strange little look on her face. "Apprenticeship?"

"Yes, of course," he said. Almost immediately, he gave a warm and hearty chuckle. "Sometimes I forget-you hardly see past your NEWTs, don't you?"

The Head Girl blushed. _How pretty she looks without those damned robes_, he thought. This particular evening, she had chosen a rather simple Muggle attire of jeans and a sweater.

"Have you ever considered...teaching?"

She seemed genuinely puzzled by the idea. "Teaching? Well...there isn't any position open here."

"There will be after this year," he replied, standing to refill his tea cup. "I've decided to take an early retirement. Actually, it won't really be retirement. Dumbledore has asked me to take a position training Aurors." At this, he smiled. "I suppose that shall mean more of Ron and Harry."

Hermione laughed. _He now loved the sound!_ "Of course. Those two have never wanted to be anything else." Hesitantly, she crossed over to an arm chair to sit, one finger sitting idly on her bottom lip in thought. "I've never really considered being a Professor," she admitted, pulling consciously at her pant-leg. Quickly, she blushed. "Thank you for considering me, Professor Lupin."

_Remus!_ he corrected, mentally. "I'm quite serious, Hermione," he replied, moving to stand in front of her chair. He looked down to her, awkwardlyshifting his knees in a nervous manner. "I would like to offer you the position...after you graduate, of course. I've already spoken to Albus."

She smiled up at him. Remus suddenly became acutely aware of how old he felt and moved to take a seat on the couch adjacent to her. He looked at her-watching her eyes struggle with something her mouth could not yet say.

Cautiously, he reached a hand to her and placed it over her own, small palm. "Speak whatever is on your mind, Hermione," he said.

"Do you ever miss...I mean...I know that you and Tonks were..." She stuttered, her cheeks darkening.

Remus smiled faintly-rather a trace of a smile that no longer existed and left only the lines of its ghost behind. "Tonks...I had always appreciated her, you know. But what she wanted was..." He stopped, scanning her face as the blush crept over it. He took his hand away from her, then. "We were friends, Hermione. Nothing more. And, yes, it is...revolting that she had to loose her life on the field, but I think that she would not regret dying for the cause. Her death gave others freedom, Hermione."

_Merlin, Remus, why don't you just have a mental breakdown in front of the girl? _

"Now, Hermione, I think it's time we discussed other means of discovering the use of your _gift_."

Her bottom puckered in towards her mouth, allowing the child better access to chew on it. Remus had since noticed the nervous habit. "What means, Remus?"she asked.

_Remus!_

"I admit my knowledge of this particular field is...limited. However, I believe that you may find your answer with Albus." Remus gave her a bright smile. "In fact, if I didn't know any better, I'd say the tricky old man probably already has a good inclination as to who gave it to you."

----

The image of the little bitch haunted his dreams. _Filthy mudblood_. Her arms tugging at the precious Harry Potter, daring to bring the prat to the feet of the Dark Lord.

_The muggle-born whore should be taught her place_, he though, venomously.

"Eh. What are you doin' there, Malfoy?"

The dark figure turned towards a ruffled Mr. Weasley, sneering at the sight of the tattered robes and endless splashes of freckles. "I believe I'm within my right, Weasley," he snapped, slipping a sheet of parchment into his robes-his body shielding the movement. "I am, after all, still a Governor. You should do well to remember that."

Arthur crossed his arms, looking down the freckled nose to the dark wizard. "And you should do well to remember who's Minister now," he replied. "I don't want to see you in these offices again."

Lucius smirked. "Very well."

In a fuss of dark robes, the blonde-haired wizard vanished.

----

"Crookshanks! _Crookshanks_!"

Hermione dropped to her knees, groping desperately beneath her bed. "Where are you, you bloody beast?" she muttered, hand colliding sharply with a discarded pair of boots. "_Ouch_!"

Angry-blood swarming her face, Hermione stood, hold her throbbing hand gingerly against her chest. "I'm going to rip out your heart, you filthy creature!"

The evidence of a once-essay laying in shreds of confetti around the bedroom floor fueled her anger even more. _Damn that cat_! Little paw marks around an upturned vile of unused face powder turned sharply out of the room. Hermione, nearly jumping over the bed to reach the door spilling out into the Head Boy and Girl's common room, grunted and screeched out of frustration.

"You better pray to Merlin that I don't find you, you little fur-ball," she spat, "or I will-"

Crookshanks purred happily up at her, perching on a golden-colored armchair. Hermione froze, all thoughts of revenge spilling from her like rain down her fingertips. _Not again_, she thought as the animal, bored with such a _human_ matter, jumped down from his bed to find other mischief.

There, were Crookshanks had sat, were two white, silken slippers adorned with silver sketches of vine-covered, exotic flowers. The parchment, tucked neatly between them, was scrawled with perfect handwriting: "_For My Love_".

----

He watched her, then, at the mirror as she had been two months prior. The pearls adorned her ears gracefully, dancing in the unobstructed air as the wild, honey curls lay piled atop her head. The slippers sat on the little vanity table.

"Won't you try them on, dearie?" coaxed the small table mirror.

Hermione nodded her assent. She stood, momentarily vanquishing the view of her face, and then reappeared, hunched over the small table to peer down at her feet. No doubt, the smile on her face had occurred as the slippers readjusted themselves to fit her perfectly.

She peered into her own reflection, eyes pooling something stilled in maturity and fear. "What am I doing?" she asked no one in particular.

"Becoming my own," replied the no one to himself.

He almost wished she could hear.

---

Author's Note - Dun, dun, dun!


	6. Love and Its Fools

Author's Note - Woot! The newest edition is now up! ;) I believe a bit of the mystery will be revealed here (coughsecretadmirercough), but enough is still up in the air to keep the suspence going, I think.

Snapedreamer - I will try to keep the story at a slow pace. ;) Thanks for the advice.

AngelicBladez - Muhahah! My plan is working!

Rinny08 - If you remember the name of the book, let me know. It sounds pretty interesting. Almost like Labyrinth. -DavidBowieDrool-

Marston Chicklet - Thank you very much. ;) I'm glad you enjoy the story. In regards to the errors, I've been looking for a beta reader, but I can't seem to get a hold of one. Also, I'm afraid it's going to be increasingly difficult to keep Snape in character from this chapter on, but I'll surely try. Oh, and I'm not a big DumbledoreIsNotDead kind of person, but I did think I needed his character for this particular story.

Amsev - Thanks! ;) Hope you like more cliffhangers!

----

Hermione paused beneath the archway. "Lemon Drops."

Nothing.

"Butterbeer. Jelly Puffs. Cinnamon Twigs. Cream Tart. Chocolate Beetles. _Marzipan Earwax_."

_Ewwww._

Hermione watched the staircase appear, her thoughts occupied by a desire for simple Muggle candy.

She felt drained as she climbed the flight, the satchel draped in her arms adding to the weight of her tired body. Barely had she slept the night before-her time had been occupied by staring into the canopy of her bed, watching the faux stars and moon twirl and spin like a child's mobile. Oftentimes, the mere sight had lured her into sleep. But last night, after catching herself in front of the mirror, a dream-like trance lulling her to gaze into the embellished reflection, even the comfort of the enchanted night sky could not soothe her.

"Come in, Miss Granger," came a warm, pleasant voice. "I had suspected you might show up this evening. Tell me, have you got the slippers with you as well?"

Hermione paused, a shocked little quiver in her bottom lip. "I...well...yes, I did, Headmaster."

_I don't know why it surprises me_, she thought, taking a seat opposite the Headmaster's desk. _Perhaps Professor Snape isn't the _real _master of Oculomancy. _

Albus seemed to smirk then, although it passed in a glimmer.

The old Headmaster took a seat, watching Fawkes regard Hermione with a regal bow. He looked quite healthy, then. _He must have been reborn only a few minutes ago_, she thought. She smiled to him and bowed her head graciously in return.

"Might I have a look, Hermione?"

Albus stroked a hand through his beard as the Head Girl reached into her satchel. First, she handed him the Devil's Box. The Headmaster studied it carefully, spinning it with his fingertips as if to memorize each angle. "I suspect Remus has already informed you of the purpose of this box."

Hermione nodded.

Cautiously, the Headmaster opened the box, placing the top down gingerly upon his desk. "Oh, my," he remarked quietly. One long, aged finger traced the edge of a pearl lightly, as if it were pulsating some fragile life. "I have heard the stories of these particular pieces, and yet was never fully convinced of their existence. It seems I have been proven to the contrary." Azure eyes lighted pleasantly upon cinnamon-Hermione frowned. "You are aware that these are Lost Artifacts?"

She swallowed-she nodded again.

"If I'm not mistaken, my dear, I believe that these may have, at one time, belonged to Lenora Slytherin." He paused, watching her eyes gradually widen. "Might I see the slippers?"

_Slytherin?_

Hermione complied, handing the Headmaster a bundle wrapped in small throw. Dumbledore pulled the crimson fabric aside gently, revealing the white silk beneath. "These are quite priceless, Hermione," he remarked gently. "The person who gave them to you has not done so lightly."

Hermione sighed, a heavy pressure in her stomach tightening. _I'm sure you're quite aware of that_, she thought, bitterly. "Headmaster, do you know who might have-"

"I'm afraid that it is not my place to interfere, Hermione," the Headmaster remarked swiftly, placing the throw over the slippers and gingerly returning the bundle to the girl. "However, I do believe that I can help you in your research over the properties of these gifts." He paused, the twinkle so familiar to his eyes changing-deepening in its understanding. "I believe that the most learned man on these particular artifacts resides right here in Hogwarts."

Hermione smiled, placing the red-cotton bundle into her satchel. "Professor Lupin has been very helpful, Headmaster, but I'm afraid that even he is not fully aware of the artifacts' capabilities."

"I'm sure that Remus has been most helpful," Dumbledore agreed. "I understand that he has been quite enthusiastic on acquiring you on as his apprentice."

She blushed slightly and placed the bag to the side of her chair, faintly aware of the presence of it calling out to her. It disturbed her, and yet she said nothing. "I intended upon accepting his offer this evening, Sir. That is...if you approve of Professor Lupin's decision."

Dumbledore studied her casually, leaning the weight of his body back into the chair. "I would be most honored to accept you on my staff, Hermione. However, it takes many years to complete an apprenticeship and I am unaware as to who the temporary replacement shall be after Remus retires." He hesitated, then. "Hermione, I must admit that Remus, although quite talented, is not the expert I was referring to. Are you aware that...Severus is an avid researcher of the Lost Artifacts?"

Hermione's eyes widened sharply. "Professor Snape?"

Albus chuckled, his hand folding thoughtfully into his lap. "If I'm not mistaken, that was one of Severus' many Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts projects. I understand that Remus has taken the formation of..."Dumbledore's Army" as one of your's?"

Hermione turned a fair shade of pink-it seemed she had much more to become self-aware about these days. "Yes, Sir," she replied, "as well as Harry and Ron, of course."

"Of course," Albus remarked, sparkling jovially. "Severus would be quite elated to discuss his progress with you, I'm sure. He hasn't had many interest in his projects for years-especially not from young witches with an incomparable amount of knowledge."

Hermione was genuinely touched by the compliment. However, the idea of working with Professor Snape did much to override her momentary pride. "Headmaster...I don't believe that Professor Snape would be very...appreciative of my asking him to-"

"Nonsense," he assured. "My dear, I'm sure you will find Severus to be quite a bit more appreciative than you expect."

----

As he watched her retreat down the staircase, he sighed, placing his wand at his temple and muttering a brief alleviation spell.

"I trust that my performance was adequate?" he inquired.

Severus stepped from the shadows of the corner bookcase, pulling the Invisibility Cloak from his body and gathering it neatly in his arms. "You say that as if you told the girl lies, Albus."

"I did not lie, Severus," Albus corrected gently, watching the eyes of the youthful Severus peering out of the older man's body. He had aged only in years, Albus thought.

"And I did not ask it of you," Snape countered, standing perfectly attentive before the Headmaster. "I do recall you admitting that it was in the best interest of the girl."

"That I did." The ancient Headmaster began to caress the gray strands of his beard. "I have asked Remus to inform the girl about her parents. I feel he may be able to handle the situation delicately in regards to Miss Granger's comfort."

Severus was visibly vexed by the comment, as Albus knew he would be. "Is _Lupin_ so much more comforting than others?"

Albus gaged this remark-he had never appreciated the competition between two of his most trusted staff. "Are you suggesting you tell the girl yourself?"

The lines of the dark man's face tightened. "Of course not," he snapped. "I have no interest in the matter, nor patience for a silly Gryffindor's outburst."

"You must learn, then, Severus." Albus stood and moved towards the younger man. _I know that you have the capacity for compassion. _"What you ask of her will require it." _Love does not exist _

_without compassion, Severus._

Severus clenched his teeth, his lips drawing out into a thin hyphen. "I ask nothing of her," he replied, curtly. "You know quite well that it is a...proposition. Miss Granger is quite capable of answering in any way her little Gryffindor mind chooses to."

Albus felt so old, then-it came upon him quickly, like a chill. "She will come to you now, Severus, to know the secrets of the artifacts. It is upon you to sway her mind into the direction that you choose."

A flicker of candle passed across the dark man's face.

"Albus," he said, gripping the cloak tightly against his body, a painful expression in the pools of his eyes, "I have spent several years trying to talk myself out of this nonsense. As it stands, I only hope that I can survive." His lips began to twitch-the old man knew Severus felt helpless as the strands of his facade began to slip away. "I do not understand why I feel more fear while in her presence than at the feet of the Dark Lord-and the joy is incomparable. I have become a fool, Albus."

Dumbledore smiled warmly. "Everyone in love is a fool, Severus."

----

The boys held each other beneath the olive-drab comforter, white and dark hair splayed across the pillow case.

"Father knows," Draco said, stroking a long, white finger across the arm of his lover. "He's disowned me. I'm quite poor, darling."

Harry chuckled. "You know that I have spent all my money on the war effort-on the horcruxs and the bribes for information. My parent's money. Sirius'. _We're_ quite poor, my love."

"How do you expect do pay for your Auror training?" Draco shifted across the mattress until he had managed to prop himself up on one elbow. Harry watched him, lazily drawing circles across the other boy's chest.

"Dumbledore is going to allow me to train for free," Harry replied, putting his glasses back on their perch behind his ears.

"It's the least they can do for the Boy Wonder." Draco smiled and pulled himself playfully on top of the Head Boy, pinning him beneath his scant weight. "We shall always be poor, my sweet," he said, his smile fading slightly.

Harry gave a sad smile-a smile for his love and his misery. "It costs a small fortune to be married in the Wizarding World-a fortune we will not have for a long time. I love this world, my heart, but their ideas are ancient. Penalties for same-sex marriages."

Draco watched him sleepily. There sat a comfortable sort of love in his eyes-pensive and warm. It was the sweetest honey Harry had ever tasted. The white-haired boy bent down to lick the salty skin of his lover. "We will find a way," he whispered in the dark.


	7. What Love Gives and What Love Takes

Author's Note - Yay! New chapter. ;) Gotta give Remus his props. Thanks for all the reviews, guys!

----

Remus watched the brass kettle steaming on the wooden stove, his forehead pulsating the shrill voice of the pot. A wave of his wand sat the kettle from the eye onto the wooden tray. Silence in the study. The professor sat, hunch-backed, in the tattered armchair, face settled in his upturned palms as they rested elbows on his knees. This was the manner in which he debated with himself, in the silence of the lonely room, only his thoughts to unbridle him.

He knew that it was only a matter of time before he loved Hermione-he believed in that one instant, where time and breathing, trivial matters, stopped and gave praise to a discovered love. He believed in this moment of realization and spent the majority of his recent life waiting for it to explode. _How lovely Hermione would look in arm_, he thought.

And for the debate-he prayed to himself not to betray his own manifesto. He was not yet prepared to declare his interest to the girl. He was her _Professor-_Merlin! As well, Remus knew how positively unfair it was to her. He was not even considered a human being to the ministry records! He was her professor, an animal, and a man of some considerable years her senior. He was poor, pitiful, and he was pinning for her love; he knew it.

It was not yet clear to him how he had strayed this path. Hermione was, by all accounts, a beautiful, talented, smart (could you quite declare her intelligence in that word!), loving, ambitious, charming young lady with the world at her feet begging to be conquered. Even when she was a small child, Remus had enjoyed even the mere sight of her-the precious gift. Quick witted and honor-bound. It was, then, not unfathomable to see why the old creature had taken to her so much. The only question was why the old boy had allowed himself to fall into her sweet, cinnamon mouth as a morsel to be devoured, though he remained so undeserving.

_You're setting up to be the victim, Remus_, he thought, bitterly. _Here you are pitying yourself when the girl's world is about to be shifted once more-fool! The axis has skidded beneath her feet one too many times for one so young_.

He had almost forgotten in his own selfish misery the news which Albus had asked him to relay to the girl. Poor circumstances, really. Remus loathed to tell it to her and to see her slight lips pucker unfavorably and the sadness in her eyes.

The timid knock reached his ears.

"Come in, Hermione," he said, straightening his back. He bathed in the scent of cedar and vanilla as she crossed the threshold.

She smiled at him and took her customary seat on the couch-she poured herself a cup of tea familiarly. _Two lumps of sugar_, Remus mused. It was her ritual.

He could sense she was positively beaming with information. "What did Albus say?" he asked, finally, unable to withstand her unusually patient demeanor. _The little vixen is trying to coax me!_

"He approved," she said, her face bright and full. She crossed her legs beneath her on the cushion, wild curls spilling down the womanly curve of her chest. His eyes wanted to linger there a moment longer before returning to the precious view of her face. "He said that he would be glad to have me as Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor-in a few years, of course."

Remus chuckled. "I don't doubt that you would be prepared after a summer's worth of training, but I'm sure that Albus will require a few years of our work."

The older man stood and crossed over towards Hermione. He looked down at her and she back to him-Remus noted how blatantly unaware the child seemed to his lengthened gaze. He smiled to her and sat next to her on the small couch. Unsure of just how to begin, Remus gently gathered the girl's hands in his own, rough palms. His pleasant gaze darkened on her puzzled face. She did not pull away from him.

"Hermione...there is something I must tell you. Albus did not want you to worry." He hesitated. _Best to say it outright, old boy_. "Hermione, your parents have been attacked-_No_, don't worry, dear, they're all right. They're resting in St. Mungo's as we speak."

Hermione jumped from the couch, red-faced, her pretty doe-eyes widened in fear. "_What? _How did..I mean..." Tears began to glimmer down her cheeks as Remus stood, grabbing her slight body into his embrace. His chin rested on her curls, taking in the sweetest honey scent-he was selfish for her even as she cried into his chest.

"It's all right, dear," he said into her tresses. Gently, he guided her back to the couch, keeping his greedy hold of her body. "It's all right, Hermione. They were hit by a stunning spell, that's all. Members of the Order had suspected Lucius-"

"_Lucius_!" Hermione pulled quickly from his chest, her eyes red and streaming. She seemed dazed for a second, lingering in thought, then rage began to spill across her face. "What...what happened?"

"It appears that Lucius was digging through information at the Ministry-they keep records of all witches and wizards in their library. And, as a Governor..." Remus paused, feeling his face glower from frustration. Hermione touched his cheek with her forefinger-she looked so beautifully miserable. _Who is comforting whom, old boy?_ Remus covered her finger with his palm. "The Order has been spying on him for quite some time now. His defense, the _Imperious Curse_...Money bought him freedom, not redemption. They saved your parents, Hermione, but Lucius...he escaped us, once again."

Hermione paled, sliding her hand back into her lap. Remus suddenly missed her touch and reached for her again, pulling her into his chest. "Can I see them?" she asked. "They must be terrified."

"Muggles react differently to magic," Remus explained, stroking a hand down her back. "After a _Stupify _from a wizard with Lucius' power, your parents will take quite a while to recover. They will sleep for months, Hermione. Albus believes that it is best if you remain here. Lucius...he is obviously after you."

Her body stiffened against him. "Why is he after me, Remus? I mean...wouldn't Harry...Harry is-"

"I don't know, Hermione," Remus admitted. His hand lingered on her back, taking in the sweet warmth of her. The air in the room seemed to still as her breath slowed, splashing chills across his skin. "For all the Muggles know, your parents are on vacation."

Hermione chuckled at that. "They haven't taken a vacation in twenty years."

He smiled down at her, touching her ear beneath the wave of hair. "Then I believe they are quite overdue for a rest." It no longer startled him-the incredible desire to touch her. Now, as she lay against him, her hands pressed against his chest, he felt so close to that relization-_love her!_ screamed the pit of him.

"The Headmaster suggested...I ask Professor Snape to study the arifacts." She pulled away to look up at him, her eyes red and perfect.

Remus' disgust was evident. "What does that..._git_ know about them?"

"Obviously, he's researched them."

"I'm sure he has." Remus sighed, pulling her back against him. "I do not like the idea of you working with him. You are, after all, my apprentice." She him an approving _Mmmmm_. _How quickly he became possessive_. "I will make sure he behaves."

"Remus?"

"_Mmmm_?"

"I'm very tired."

----

_Fuck!_

The wound before him oozed it's dissent. He tapped his wand against it and cringed as the skin began to seal. The candle flicked and spat against the damp background of the mansion, licking him with light and exposing the angry slash of red across his abdomen. His body fanned across the black sheets-it was cool, there, in the evenings.

He had never Disapparated so quickly-the muggle-born whore's parents saved by the precious Order of the Old Man.

He would strike at her soon enough.

----

Severus sat at the small black desk, pulling his robe furiously from his shoulders and letting it sprawl across the stone floor. His eyes were black like rot-the disease spilling from him darkly and anger pulsating across his chest. He pulled out the drawer of the desk and retrieved the black hand-mirror, carvings of roses and vines etched across the casing. "Show me," he hissed. The pool of reflection began to shift until Severus' face was rippled as the surface of a pond-swirling, hissing, and spinning into oblivion. He saw nothing but blackness of the inside of Hermione's satchel before slamming the thing down and watching it shatter across the floor.

"_Lupin._"

----

When Hermione woke in the arms of her professor, watching his chest rise and fall in sleep, she smiled and closed her eyes. She had never slept so well as the night she lay with Remus on the worn burgundy couch.


	8. Desired Chances

Author's Note - Sorry it took so long to post this chapter, guys, but Fanfic, for some reason or another, was not letting me load a document. Many, many, many (!) thanks to my wonderful new Beta Reader Marston Chicklet(Kandice). We now present to you the continuation!

WARNING - Small slice of lemon at the end of this chap.! ;)

----

"Maybe Dumbledore will let you go and visit them after Christmas."

The Ball was one month away, and Christmas two weeks after that. One month had already passed from the night Hermione spent with her professor, their bodies entangled on the worn fabric of the sofa as the morning brushed light across their skin and gave them an awkward awakening. Hermione watched the tired man fumble his apologies—they both had a very awkward laugh and parted ways. She had not been to visit him since, yet it was not out of embarrassment or fear of what he might say to her. It was simply that Hermione had been too busy being Hermione—her nights were spent in the confines of the library, books propped against one another to form a bed or pillow. Her research had gotten her nowhere and the prospect of an evening with Professor Snape grew steadily more tolerable, if only to cure the itch in her curious brain.

"I hope so, Harry," she replied, rubbing her tired eyes as they walked the corridor together. The nights in the library were catching up to her, it seemed. Hardly a day passed, now, that she didn't feel utterly depleted.

"But he says they're doing all right, right?"

"He told me yesterday that they were starting to move their fingers and toes in their sleep. That's a good sign, Harry. Dumbledore has the best mediwitcheslooking after them." That brightened her a bit and allowed her slight lips to manage a smile.

Harry gave her a sideways glance. "I hate to break your mood, Hermione, but did you notice the moon last night?"

They both paused. _Damn._ Full moon. Remus would be recovering today. Which meant that Defense Against the Dark Arts would be taught by—

"Are you two _quite _incapable of moving or shall I have to levitate you into the classroom like _luggage_?"

The billow of black robes slipped past them, a sneer evident on the plaster-white face. Harry clenched his jaw together as he walked past the dark man and began to make his way into the room, Hermione following behind him.

"One moment, Miss Granger," Snape said, almost at the tone of a whisper, his hand on her shoulder to prevent her from entering the classroom.

Harry looked back to her, defiance in his boyish face. "You were not _invited_, Potter," the professor snapped, giving Hermione a slight shove away from the threshold.

She looked back to Harry with a nod and the boy turned reluctantly and ventured into the classroom. In the shadow of the door, shielded from view, Snape regarded the girl coolly.

"The Headmaster has informed me of your..._little trinkets_ which I am to examine." The slits of his eyes narrowed as he studied her. "You will present them to me this evening at seven. Must I elaborate on the importance of punctuality?"

Hermione shook her head dumbly. "No, Professor."

He sneered nastily down at her. "I shall be taking my own time away from certain other projects for this little endeavor. I do hope you are quite aware of this and will not make yourself too much of a nuisance. It was certainly not my idea to pursue _this_."

_It was not my idea either, Professor._ She wondered about the probability of acquiring the spell with which to splash your opponent with a nasty coating of venom. "Professor, it is not necessary to—"

"I should think that the Head Girl would not wish to defy the orders of her Headmaster. No matter. It is no longer an issue at your discretion, Miss Granger. Now, return to my classroom before I dock fifty points from Gryffindor for tardiness and general stupidity. And close your mouth you stupid _gaping girl_!"

----

"Can you believe that enormous git?" Ron stabbed his fish with the flat end of the knife, red pooling across his dotted cheeks. "Two classes with Snape—it's inhuman."

"It's mental," added Neville, still pale and shaking from their previous Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

"I don't care what Dumbledore says," Harry added. He looked ready to maul the trout fillet with his fists. "I don't trust Snape."

Hermione sat quietly, passing the bits of fish around her plate with a fork. She had constructed a valley with her peas and the carrots passed for various objects with which to disassemble the green peaks. Disassemble and reconstruct.

"Haven't you got anything to complain about?" Ron asked grumpily of the young witch.

Hermione gave him a sharp glance. _Loads, Ron, _she mused sullenly. "Honestly, Ron," her tireless mantra began, "he's a professor and as such he deserves our respect."

"Got a little crush, Granger?" Draco Malfoy stalked behind her, his arms crossed into his robes, white teeth gleaming dangerously. "Thought you Mudbloods went for the older type. I just didn't expect you to have good taste—Head of _Slytherin_." "Watch your mouth, _Malfoy_," Ron snapped, his boyish fists curling into tight balls.

Draco sneered triumphantly. "You might want to put a leash on your friend, Potter. It's not good to let animals loose."

Ron moved to stand, reaching inside his robes with his wand hand. "Sit down!" Hermione snapped at him, exhausted with boys' antics. "I don't want to have to deduct points from Gryffindor."

"He started it!" Ron snapped indignantly, his pinkish lip quivering in the wake of her reproach.

"I don't want to deduct points from Slytherin, either," she remarked, giving Draco a quiet glare. _Don't raise suspicion_, her eyes pleaded with pointed glances towards the silent Harry, his dark hair bent over the dinner plate.

Draco sniffed, his dashing chin protruding from him like so many busts of Roman Gods and ancient demigods. He was arrogant with a sort of fullness that his father could never imitate-a tangible fullness that no longer left one cringing but aching to complete his hero worship. After all, Draco had his pure red blood as a mark on Death Eater corpses.

"Granger," was the stiff remarked left hanging after his leave to the Slytherin table.

Ron fumed over the supper, his cheeks burning a defiant light into the Great Hall. "Didn't see you doing anything about it, Harry," he grumbled.

Hermione glared at him. "Ron, for once in your life, _shut it_!"

He looked at her, wounded. She responded with a cold sneer before turning back to her plate. Harry said nothing.

It was in the summer that Hermione had discovered their little secret—discovered their bodies knotted in one another beneath the sheets of a Weasley bed. Harry and Hermione had been staying with the family after the war, resting and rediscovering life in the warm burrow. Draco, too, had come, then disowned by his father—it was Dumbledore's doing, of course.

"I don't understand it, really," Harry had later told her. "It felt right to kill Voldemort and it feels right, now, to be with Draco."

"I'm not judging you," she replied, embracing him tightly. "I only want you to be happy."

In his own strange way, Hermione knew that Draco made him happy, and in turn, she felt the odd contentment around Draco. She could only describe it as such: it was considered puppy-love for a young boy to tease a girl.People recognized that as an early form of flirtation. Draco and Harry's hazing, perhaps, was their earliest form of flirtation. They could not express their love for one another, and so expressed the hate they felt from their own confusion. After the war, however, the line between their own boundaries and what they allowed themselves to have become distorted by the idea of loss. Death became all-too-real an option and love the lesser fear. Hermione had only admiration for their affair. One day, she hoped to see the side of Draco that only Harry could—the good in the dark shadows of his arrogance.

An idea flickered-something unthought-of before, she suspected, by any Gryffindor mind. Perhaps Draco was not the only one whose mask she had yet uncovered—true selves pitted in arrogance and pride. Perhaps men who wore their darkness on their faces had fires in their stomachs—burning brightly in the shield of their bodies.

----

Severus Snape paced the length of his office, robes licking at desks and chair legs. He was exhausted. Outraged. Overjoyed. Terrified. Subdued. Reborn. Beaten to death and suckled from head to toe. Horny. Always horny—he _was _a man.

The idea of the pucker-lipped little Gryffindor bending her slender neck over one of his cauldrons, the caress of smoke breathing across her white face, beads of concentration streaming down her body beneath the soft robes, and he the only one to witness it! Hell. He nearly decided to start the potion tonight.

_Miss Granger would rather saw off a limb than spend the night with you, you wretched old bastard_, he thought, pausing slightly to breathe. Recently, he seemed to need to make a conscious effort to breathe.

Severus did not remember how he came to love her. All he recalled were pieces of the path, not the direction of the undertaking itself or, really, how he had come to walk there. Flashes of pictures rose in his mind—Hermione cooking supper at the Black House, Hermione striking out at Draco Malfoy, Hermione sitting at her vanity staring into the depths of the mirror, Hermione blushing as she read a rather obscene romance novel at the back of a library thought to be deserted—he had bought the novel days after and found himself ready to toss it, sneeringly, into the fireplace with one hand and masturbate to the thought of Hermione as the heroine with the other. He remembered the way her hair flattened and her body curved and the sweet smile at her lips growing to understand the way a woman should smile. Memories of reality and fiction began to intertwine—Hermione smiling. Hermione smiling beneath him. Hermione's body white and bare beneath his own as he took her to the sounds of her own wonderful screams.

If nothing else, Severus knew that he was obsessed and obsession, he reasoned, might as well be random. Perhaps love was random, too. The only truth that mattered now was that Severus lived and breathed the scent of her skin. Her eyes fed him hunger. Her body maddened him and killed him daily.

He wanted to kiss her. Scream at her. Hold her. Debate the properties of potions until he was driven so mad with her incessant speaking that he fucked her small body until she buckled from exhaustion. That was his truth—the derivatives never mattered.

"P-professor?"

The sound made him pause. Quickly, he slid back into himself and brought out the old character of the dreadful potion's master. "Enter," he said.

The door came quietly open a crack, just enough to let the girl through, and closed behind her. She stopped and looked down, then up to him, then down—an endless process. "I've... I've brought the artifacts."

Snape snorted. "I should hope that you would at least find that task manageable," he replied tartly, then walked towards her with a quick and purposeful stride.

He saw her flinch and wanted to recoil, but struck her with his presence and took her satchel unceremoniously.

_Damn you for being disgusted_, he thought. _Damn me for making you so. _

He pulled the box from the bag and laid it aside-the slippers he found wrapped neatly in a cotton throw, which thrilled him immensely. The objects were well cared-for. It pleased him.

Unthinking, he dumped her bag to the side. "How did you come by these _treasures_?" he asked silkily.

He turned, enjoying the sight of her fierce blush. It reminded him of that night in the library as she read the romantic book by candlelight. A passage from the novel came to his mind-he had read it over and over relevantly.

_He kissed her sleeping lips and touched the golden nectar of her hair. She was a Princess of a thousand kingdoms in his heart, and yet lay in the garb of peasantry. He was her knight, her savior, born of the kings of..._

Severus Snape was nobody's savior, but perhaps Hermione would be his princess nonetheless.

"I...uh...well...they were gifts." She bit her lip-he knew that habit.

"Who gave them to you?" Severus asked as he walked behind the desk, crossing his arms over his black robes.

Her cheeks darkened delightfully. He became very aware of how he desired to make her blush over other matters. "It's...it's a personal matter," she said, diplomatically. Her eyes met his own, eventually, trying desperately to convey her own confidence.

He sneered at her-it complimented his black grandeur. "I see," he remarked pointedly. "I was not aware that insufferable little know-it-alls had such _suitors_."

"That is my own business, Professor Snape," she retorted, giving him an incredulous look. It reminded him of a southern American woman in the picturesque Muggle films on their great plantations—they had always seemed to Severus a saucy kind of woman. The kind that would slap a man's cheek and cry, _How dare he?_ at the faintest remark on their character. He wondered what she would look like in one of their hoop dresses. And then nothing at all. "I only want to study the properties of these objects."

"The Headmaster has made it rather impossible for me to object," he said. A flicker of exhaustion passed across his face before he once again became impassive. It was going to take so long to claim her—woo her, perhaps, was a better word. Severus was a possessive man. "I should think you would rather like to study with your..._friend_, Lupin." The word passed his lips and wounded him.

She, too, gave him the look of an injured creature. And then anger. "_Professor_ Lupin has kindly been helping me to research, but we have hit an impasse with books. The Headmaster suggested that I ask you for help." A pause. She hesitated with her next words, it seemed, but went on with Gryffindor tactlessness. "He had informed me that you worked with the Lost Artifacts in a Defense Against the Dark Arts project. Frankly, Professor, I just had a lack of options, otherwise I would not have bothered you."

_But you would kindly bother Lupin unto all hours of the night, would you not?_ He was sure of the fact that their evening together had been relatively harmless—the night he spent seeing only the inside of her satchel through the mirror had alerted him, at first, but his tact for subtle Occlumency only confirmed the fact that there was nothing, yet, between the two. Still, he would have given up much more than _Lupin_ to hold that insufferable girl to his chest all night.

He swallowed and stilled his temper. "Leave the objects here," he instructed, knowing the enchantment he had placed on the box was useless now without the mirror-damn his anger. He had so loved to see her as she slept through the portal the box provided to the hand-mirror. "I will concoct the beginnings of a potion that will take a month to complete. You will return in a week to help me. Seven o'clock. Do not be late or I shall throw the potion out. Good evening, Miss Granger."

He watched her coldly as she stood-a little shock playing on her face. She bit her lip and picked up her rather empty satchel. "Good evening, Professor," she said and turned from him, her body swaying beautifully as she retreated to the door.

Once alone, Severus wasted little time. He replaced the ward on the door and leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes as his hands worked deftly to relieve him of the few buttons of his trousers. His mind pictured her, skin smelling like the fresh scent of vanilla and cedar still hanging in the dungeon, in a pool of black sheets, bare and perfect. He held himself and started. He could taste her neck as he peaked.


	9. A Little Taste of Spanish Wine

Author's Note - ;) Enjoy.

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rinny08 - Why have it if I don't use it? ;)

snapedreamer - Thanks. :P Glad you like it.

AlexandraKathleen - Here you go. :)

To all my regular reviewers...I love you! Thanks so much for making this worth while. ;)

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Remus peered out from behind the stained-glass pane, watching her in the empty garden ruins. At one time, during the days of a youthful Professor Sprout, this particular section of Hogwarts ground had run rampant with all kinds of exotic and powerful plants. Remus recalled briefly that Sirius had dishonored many a young girl in the startling stretch of land between the Many-Colored Rosebushes and the Serenading Sapling. He smiled at the memory of hearing pleasant screams in between the lines of "_Hex Me, Sugar, With All Your Love_".

Hermione sighed as she turned the page of her book, resting the cover against her knees at she sat on a small, checkered blanket. Her back lay against an old oak tree, the limbs overgrown and sheltering her from the sun like a protective womb. She looked to Remus like a garden sprite or some sort of beautiful pixie that lounges on tall blades of grass with the wild wind tamed in the tresses of her hair.

He knew that he must approach her, though he was loath to do it then. His face was painted with fresh scars, flesh torn and mended and re-mended like a patchwork of beggar's cloth. The white of his eyes turned red and the sagging, dark skin beneath them told of sleepless nights and miserable existences. Still, he could let the silence between them stale no longer—to regard her as if she didn't exist was worse than any physical pain his _other_ creature could expose him to. Embarrassment became, more and more, a fragile hurdle.

With the stealth that the beast had left in the residue of his existence the night before last, Remus stalked towards her. The previous day, that he had spent recovering, she had been in his head, scratching around like a caged thing. But at that moment, Hermione seemed so placid and lovely. He was sure it was what the book did to her.

"Hello," he said, watching her skin jump from her body.

"Professor," she stammered, placing a hand over her heart.

_Are we on such formal terms again? Professor? _His heart clamored a war-cry against it. _Remus! Remus!_

"Remus," he corrected gently, kneeling beside her. His hand reached for her, pleasantly surprised that she did not move away, and lifted the book up to reveal the gold lettering on the spine. "_Potions and Their Truth-Defining Qualities. _Hardly a light read, my dear."

She blushed faintly, closing the book and placing it to the side. "How do you feel?"

He gave a haggard sigh. His eyes closed in surrender. "Terrible," he said, then chuckled. "I don't think I'll ever get used to it."

"You shouldn't have to." Lazily, Hermione let one finger reach out to trace a new scar on his cheek. Remus almost wished for more scars so that she might continue over each one—her touch would be worth any pain and the opportunity to slip one of those fingertips into his mouth gave him a thorough shiver.

She must have realized what she had allowed herself to do because she recoiled quickly, as if he had been fire.

"You don't have to... I mean..." He sighed, closing his eyes to collect himself. It was difficult to keep himself from begging for more of that touch. He could smell her soap on his face. "I... I wanted to come here to apologize for... _the _evening. I know that it might not have been... appropriate... to..."

Something caused him to stop. He looked at her. He saw that _thing_ burning in the back of her eyes and it gave him measure to do something almost worthy of Sirius.

"But," he said, "I'm not going to apologize. All I am going to do is to tell you... tell you that it has been quite a long time since anyone has ever allowed me to hold them like that and that it meant s-something very wonderful to me."

She seemed to study him, like the page of a book. He imagined his words were the dialogue of text to which she was so familiar. If only he could open her so easily to read what she felt and see the dialogue in her mind. "It... it was wonderful for me, too," she admitted with a smile.

He felt his heart catch. He hadn't really expected that.

"After you had told me about my parents, it meant everything to me that you gave me such comfort. I'm sorry for being so awkward about it," she admitted, biting her lip that Remus so wished to taste for himself. "I suppose, given all the time I've had to think about it, I'd like to... well..."

"Perhaps, you might have a bit of tea and sandwiches?" he offered.

Hermione gave him a wondrous look—how beautiful her lips turned to express joy. "Yes," she said. "I would love to have supper with you. Is six o'clock all right—I'm meeting Harry in Hogsmeade this afternoon?"

Remus nodded. He moved to stand, but thought better of it. There was something to do, yet.

His fingers reached out to her once more, not in search of a book, but in search of those perfect lips that she was content to nibble. He touched them lightly with a bright flicker in his eyes. "Until tonight."

----

Severus watched the potion simmering slightly on the fire, a transient gazed fixed upon the flame, then the cauldron, and up into some non-existent wonder of his mind in the space between the bookcase and the nearest worktable. He worked in his classroom, something he did not do often, but only for the sake of time while grading the newest batch of worthless essays.

_Damn you, Severus, for losing your temper and assigning eight-foot-long parchments on the properties of lavender roots! _

He sighed and slumped over the table, placing an ancient forehead against slender fingers. They, the delicate fingers, were stale from the turnings of page to page—if only they were to be soothed by the cashmere skin of a particularly insufferable little girl! How he wished to touch the aching, sensitive skin between her thigh and the sweet center...

A knock perturbed his thoughts and Severus shot up from his desk, ready to hex the bastard six ways from Sunday. "_Yes_?" he inquired saltily.

Remus Lupin pushed through the entrance, one hand lazily stuffed in his pocket as the other slid the old door shut. He gazed solemnly down his awkward nose to the dark figure, back curved and gangly, clothes sagging in shambles down his clammy skin. He looked like a lanky teenage boy shoved inside a man's old carcass.

"I'd like a word with you, Snape," he said, the articulation in his voice biting.

Severus casually raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest. "Do make it brief," he replied and smirked nastily for good measure. "I have _certain _potions to monitor."

Remus visibly stiffened at that. "I've just come from a talk with Albus—seems that you've taken on quite an interesting... project as of late." Casually, as a man strolls without purpose, he began down between the rows of tables towards the desk behind which Severus stood. "Why should you make it any of your business about Hermione's affairs?"

Snape's snarky little smile grew across his thin lips, stretching the wrinkles on his face. "Why should you make it any of your affair what _Miss Granger_ chooses to indulge herself in? I do believe you're making quite a nuisance of yourself, Lupin. You do spend much time with the girl."

The other man's face darkened, his hand pulling from his pocket and resting menacingly by his side. "What, exactly, are you insinuating, _Snape_?" he asked through his teeth.

_It's almost too easy to be amusing, _he thought. "Nothing, of course. Although, I do believe it is rather inappropriate to spend so much time alone with a student. What _have_ you been doing with her, Lupin? I have heard tell there has been at least one evening that Miss Granger had not left your apartment until the wee hours of the morning. Peculiar."

Remus advanced on him quickly, wand in hand, though not so quickly as to deter Severus from drawing his own black weapon. The men stood, then, separated by a desk, wands at the other's throat.

"You will not make assumptions regarding Hermione's honor," Remus barked.

"I only make assumptions on your capability to control yourself, Lupin. Young Miss Granger has developed into quite the woman, hasn't she? I have watched your eyes devour her more than once."

"And have your eyes also taken the liberty?" Remus demanded hoarsely, his hand threatening to quiver with the intensity of his heartbeat.

Severus gave a dark chuckle. _Such Gryffindor tactlessness, _he mused. _You show yourself too well to your enemies_. The darker professor could see Remus struggling to control the beast within himself. _You're just a cage, you worthless, pathetic git. _Severus' thoughts came unbitten. _How could Hermione ever love a soulless creature?_

"Where my eyes move is my concern. Does she know how possessive you've become of her?"

"She does not belong to me!" he snapped.

"Pity," Snape countered. "Of course, it's better for her that way. How could anyone ever love what is less than human?"

Remus paused, his eyes filling with darkness. His breath stilled and the wand shook noticeably in his hand. "How could a heartless bastard know anything about love?" he managed through his anger.

Severus paused. _Damn_.

"Touché," he muttered.

His hand stayed patiently raised a second more in the heavy silence, then slowly withdrew back to the cavern of his robes. "Was there a purpose to your visit, or did you simply desire to bother me as usual?"

"I only came to warn you," Remus said, his wand slowly retreating down from its post. "I do not want to see Hermione upset by you. She's been through enough—more than anyone her age should. Albus assures me that you are capable of brewing the necessary potions..." He paused, his eyes narrowing. The slight, red moustache twitched in anticipation. "...though I do fail to see what this situation yields you."

Severus smirked, then, his eyes simmering like two pools of black cauldrons._ Even Gryffindors are occasionally perceptive_, he thought. "It is Albus who... _insisted_ I perform this task, through no decision of my own."

The haggard professor seemed to study this a bit, then found little room to disbelieve. Perhaps he was still under the assumption his bastard friend Sirius had made in their seventh year—Severus Snape, though not bitterly, was certainly not homosexual, no matter how many times the Marauding twits saw fit to etch 'Faggot' on Severus' schoolbooks.

Remus sighed and placed his wand in his tattered pocket. "Perhaps," he said and turned on a dilapidated leather heel, leaving Severus to stand idly in a lonely classroom chamber.

The potions' professor pinched the bridge of his profound nose between a thumb and forefinger, trying to bide back the vile headache creeping down between his eyebrows. He took a breath and held it, diluting the oxygen with intense frustration before exhaling it in one, great blow. Wearily, he sat. The whole process was taking its toll on his tired body. More than just brewing an extra potion, which was worthless and wasteful, of course, considering Severus' preexisting knowledge of the artifacts—such wastefulness vexed him beyond repair, but his entire conditioning was ineffectual with matters regarding emotion. It weakened him immensely to love Hermione, and even more so, it weakened him to pursue her.

Once he had her, he determined, he would allow himself time to rejuvenate. The question was, however, how much time would Hermione allow him?

----

Hermione paused at the entrance, brushing non-existent dust from her blouse. She fiddled with her hair, her belt, anything her small hands could latch themselves around and fuss over. She was nervous. The warmth that had filled her that night as she lay against Remus' chest haunted her. Was she supposed to feel that way? Of course not. Not about a professor. It was unfair to herself, to want a man she could not have. It was unfair to Remus to want him. Did she want him? Of course she did. Only a fool could deny it after the thoughts Hermione had allowed herself to have after that night. She wondered what it would be like in between his lips—in that dark, cool space she hoped to taste of Spanish wine. She had only ever allowed herself to kiss Ron. It was a chaste, passionless kiss that made her feel dead inside, like a dry book with few, uninteresting pages. He kissed like a boy eating broccoli. He did not desire seconds.

She cleared her throat and knocked on the door.

"Yes?" came the muffled reply.

Hermione pulled the door open and entered the small study, the candlelight writhing shadows across the rows of books-the letters on the spines glittering like so many treasures. Remus stood over a bronze pot, pouring two generous cups of Earl Gray tea.

"I hope you're hungry," he said, plopping a sliver of lemon into his own drink. "I managed to retrieve a large plate of sandwiches and tea cakes from the house elves."

Hermione smiled and took her offered drink. She decided against any mention of S.P.E.W. that particular evening. She took a seat on the couch, curling her legs beneath her gracefully. "Any word yet on my parents?"

"Albus reports that they are doing splendidly," Remus said, taking a seat beside the girl. He gave his crooked smile and took a sip of the dark, steaming liquid. His eyes unabashedly took view of her slight, pretty form. "I... I spoke with Professor Snape this afternoon."

Hermione noted the change in Remus once Snape was mentioned. His eyes took a far-off sheen and his hands curled tighter against the old cup.

"Oh. What about?" she asked cautiously.

"I wanted to speak with him about the project—your project." His hand reached up to smooth the wild, shorn red hair. Hermione vaguely wondered what it might be like to the touch. "I warned him, Hermione, to treat you civilly."

_Chivalry lives on_, she thought, almost grimly. "Professor Snape is not... coddling, but I do respect his skill. I wouldn't breakdown under his callous methods. I _have_ had six years of his classes." She attempted a smile, but Remus did not reciprocate.

What was it with men and their petty disputes? Granted, Snape was not the charming sort of man who attracted gaggles of friends and companions. He was not extroverted or even really conversational. However, Hermione knew that he was a brave man to have spied so long on Voldemort and dispatched his own reputation for slander after the "death" of Dumbledore. There were more dimensions to Snape, she decided. Oh, she had no delusions of this perfect, sunshine personality beneath his onion-like layers. She did, however, expect some glimmer of morality and ethics. Humanity. Love? That might be too far outside his boundaries, but it remained a possibility.

Remus, however, appeared to have categorized Snape as an open sore.

The older professor shifted closer to her in the proximity of telling secrets. She felt her skin stand from her body, erect and aware of his warmth.

"In our seventh year, Sirius discovered a new manner in which to torment Severus. It occurred to him how rare an occasion it was that Severus was seen with a girl. Apart from his... appearance, it perplexed Sirius. Even the girls from Slytherin refused to give him the time of day, and he was a credit to their intelligence house points." Remus paused then, massaging his chin as if to stimulate thought. "Sirius believed him to be... uninterested in girls, Hermione."

The girl raised an eyebrow. "He thought Professor Snape was gay?"

_Damn you, silly boys_, she thought. Hermione would never understand a teenage boy's way of thinking. What did it matter about sexual preference? The wizarding world and the Muggle world, it seemed, and for such depressing reasons, held too many similarities. "I don't see the value of that assumption."

"Neither did I," Remus replied, placing his cup on the floor before them. "But... you have to understand, Hermione. Sirius and Severus were at war. Any exploitation of the other's secrets and... Well, it's a nasty business. That was what Sirius tormented him with all year. And after graduation, when we parted ways, Sirius still refused to apologize or even acknowledge how cruel he had been. You see, what I'm worried about, Hermione, is that Severus is still incredibly bitter about it. And since Sirius... After he passed, I believe that Severus transferred this hatred to me. And to strike me, I fear that he might..."

Remus stopped. His face was white. His lips quivered with some inaudible disbelief.

Hermione, however, understood quite well what he had meant to stifle. Remus believed that Severus would strike at Hermione to avenge his hatred of Remus. And Hermione was the target because... because of the very fact that she tried to dissemble. Remus cared for her. How did Snape perceive it even before Hermione?

She didn't have time to think about that.

All she could think at that moment was how beautiful his lips tasted—Spanish wine and the slightest fleck of lemon. He devoured her, his tongue parting her red cavern wide, searching for absolution there and finding her perfectly willing. They held one another and searched. They discovered it and exploited it. His hand found her breast and claimed it. She shuddered. Her fingers moved through his hair, smoothing the wild bits of honey-red and mahogany. They knew each other for centuries.

"No," she managed, pulling her lips away. "Not like this. I can't..." She took a breath and watched him, his lips swollen and his hands refusing to return her body.

He sighed and pulled her against him. "I understand," he whispered as he rocked her.

Moments later, Hermione made her way towards her dormitory, pressing her fingers against her lips in disbelief. It was understood that they regretted nothing. They repressed nothing. And, most importantly, there would be no backwards steps. Only time would give Hermione the comfort she needed.

Through her happiness, one thought plagued her.

_Sirius._ What would he have said to Harry had he known about Draco?

_Damn little boys_, she thought.


	10. Beneath the Staircase

Author's Note - Hi, guys. It's been a while since my last chapter, but this one seemed really difficult to write, for some reason. Again, I want to thank my lovely Beta-Reader Marston Chicklet for all her hard work and patience. ;) In regards to all the confusion of my pairing choice...I hate to give away an ending. Suffice it to say that I _did_ put it in the category of HG/SS for a reason. ;) I hope that helps.

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kyaxskyxgoddess - Thank you very much. ;)

Nocturnal007 - Thank you. ;) Although I haven't had time yet to read your fic, I promise I will do my best to do so in the future.

septentrion and PyroSlytherin - I hope my above statement answers your question. ;)

sallene - ;) 'Preciate it.

rinny08 - Lol! I suppose he is a bit creepy. ;P

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Lucius gave the secretary a smashing look as he passed. She was pretty.

Muggle-born, no doubt.

The Weasley git would be one to take pride in such a mockery.

She did not smile back or even look up from her parchment. Typical. Five years before, she would have at least begrudgingly bid him a pleasant "good morning". Now, Lucius was oftentimes hard-pressed to illicit an acknowledgment from the _free_ wizarding world. It seemed the weed of freewill had run roots on the establishment of hierarchy. No matter. Lucius Malfoy was a man of insurmountable means. He was certain that even he could survive in this new world.

Lucius entered without the slightest knock, gathering his robes against him. Arthur looked up from his desk, his chin sullen and his eyes glittering faintly behind the restraint of his new position. He looked exhausted. Piles of unattended papers littered the messy study of empty, upturned Butterbeers and wrappings of Chocolate Frogs and Every-Flavor Beans. Books in disarray and sticky pages flittered noisily about the room, opening and closing and bobbing up and down as if to make it pointedly clear of their discontent. And Arthur Weasley himself was a shabby, unshaven wreck in un-mended trousers and red, drooping eyes.

"Well, well," Lucius hummed, a devious flit gracing his voice. "It seems a remarkable improvement from your living conditions, at least."

"I'll have none of your tongue, Malfoy," Arthur said, dangerously. He attempted to straighten himself in his chair, retaining the final shred of dignity salvageable. He was tired and that gave him the inexplicable power of tactlessness. "We're both quite aware why I called you here."

"Are we?" Lucius asked, quirking the corners of his lips in a dashing strike.

"We are," Arthur replied. "How can you stoop so low as to attacking defenseless Muggles? Tell me, Lucius, have your ribs healed?"

Lucius visibly stiffened. _Fuck you._ "I'm quite sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You know quite well what I am talking about." Arthur stood, his elbows buckling from the strain as he pulled himself up by his desk. He looked as if a whisper might topple him and send him spinning like a bottle. "You also know that I will never be able to put you back in Azkaban on the testimony of three Aurors. Why Harry could kill Voldemort but we can't kill greed will always be beyond me."

Lucius grimaced. Arthur was right. He would give the remainder of his family fortune so as not to set one fair hair back in Azkaban.

"What's this about, Lucius?" The weary minister crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. "Why Hermione? What vendetta are you holding against this child?"

Images of a final battle—the Mudblood in the blood and dust carrying that pitiful symbol of a boy across a field. Crying. Mewing like a bitch. Her body buckling and dumping him at the Dark Lord. Spinning. Writhing. Darkness cultivating into oblivion. And all, at that moment, had become clear to Lucius. Harry was nothing more than a banner—a poster-child for the Order. It was she, the Mudblood, that was the clearer enemy—the defiant little impure witch daring to draw the final strings of the cause of Voldemort. She was the reason that other Mudbloods slept soundly in their beds, knowing she, the warrior lioness, was on their side of light. Granger was the torch of their campaign.

"Nothing at all." Lucius smiled. He noted, once, while looking into a mirror, that he could manipulate his smile with flecks of malice, cruelty, hatred, and even understanding and that each separate emotion was distinct and decipherable.

By the evidence on Arthur's face that the old boy knew something was coming, Lucius decided it was the right time to enact his plan. "Weasley," he spat the word distastefully, "I feel that I am rather on an extreme to the contrary. Perhaps I should divulge my own particular design for Ms Granger."

This was his particularly favorite idea. But hell, there was always Plan B...

----

The Christmas Ball was one week away and Hermione was already frustrated beyond belief.

Without the objects in her possession, it was almost impossible to research them. She sighed and tossed another volume on enchanted clothing across the room, a flicker of satisfaction on her face as it caused a resounding _thud_ through the common room. Her body sank lower into the chair, her legs tucked beneath her and her arms flanked with a quilt that Mrs. Weasley had sent her last Christmas. It was a beautiful tapestry depicting the Burrow in autumn when the leaves just began to singe a warm orange and red skies draped overhead through a screen of smoke billowing out the Weasley chimney. It felt warm and good and smelt of Molly's hand oil and the apples she pealed for her famous pastries.

Often, Hermione wondered what it might have been like to have grown up in the Burrow—Arthur and Molly were wonderful parents. Once, she had seen them dancing together in the quiet evening when everyone else had gone to bed and the record player gilded soft lyrics of past days and long love. They held one another so close and looked so perfectly made for the other.

Her parents were dentists. They never danced. The only thing they did together was floss.

She had yet gone to see them as Dumbledore had not given his consent.

"Too dangerous," he had said, and then nothing else.

Her time so far had been spent Christmas shopping—a thing which, even though she would be loath to admit it, excited her greatly. It was the only real shopping she enjoyed. So far, she had been able to purchase a new set of dress robes for Ginny that easily transformed into a variety of colors and lengths, a set of embossed combs for Harry (the untamed cowlick was soon to be tackled), a new kit of oils and brushes for Ron's broom, a bottle of lavender cologne for Neville, and, something which would be given in secret, a pair of leather flying gloves for Draco. Hermione was still determined to see what Harry saw in Malfoy.

But, perhaps her most cherished purchase was her gift for Remus. While visiting Flourish & Blotts, Hermione had found a lovely little contraption that had instantly made her think of the professor. It was a small, wooden box in which was kept a silver set of sewing needles and a spool of thread that would turn any color and which had been spelled to refill itself. The entire kit had been spelled, actually, to mend any tear magically. Hermione would have loved to stitch Remus' tattered wardrobe personally, but, somehow, she could never bring herself to ask. Partly because she didn't want to make him uncomfortable.

Also, partly because she found it difficult to speak while his mouth was on her own.

Three weeks had passed since their first kiss and not an evening gone that Remus hadn't found the opportunity to enjoy her mouth further. Hermione knew quite well that she was in love with him. She had hoped that he might soon confess his own feelings. For now, they were quite content with holding one another and exploring the pleasure of their other's kiss. Afterwards, on the small couch, they would talk about books and spells and Hermione's life with her Muggle family. They did not discuss Remus' past and Hermione knew well to treat that subject tenderly. In fact, it was only a few days until the next full moon.

The other occupant of her time had been present during her visits to the dungeon to see the progress of the detecting potion. Surprisingly enough, Snape had even allowed her a handful of questions regarding the properties of the concoction and had answered them fully with cool professionalism. Furthermore, Hermione was even permitted to add the few remaining ingredients to the potion that very evening. One week more and she would have her answer.

She tried very hard not to pay any further thought as to the identity of the giver.

The young woman sighed and rose from her chair, letting the blanket fall back onto the cushion. She stretched her arms above her head and arched her back as she yawned. Satisfied, she pulled her heavy winter robe over her sweater and jeans and flipped open the portal from her chambers into the quiet castle hallway. Casually, she descended one staircase, then another, and through endless tunnels of cold stone and the glances of the portraits as she passed. She thought about Remus and the stolen kiss after dinner in the darkness beneath the stairs. He was such a passionate man. Had Hermione not complained of fatigue, their session might have lasted hours. Days. Weeks of bliss could be spent inside those lips, she thought.

Hermione paused to catch a breath. She was feeling so tired, lately. The holiday season was running her ragged.

As she reached the entrance to the classroom, she took a second to tie her wild mane into a loose bun-it was necessary when lingering over preciously full cauldrons. She knocked patiently and was rewarded with a starch "Enter" before proceeding into the room.

She was greeted, then, with a very sour-looking potions master.

He lingered over the foul-smelling concoction, greasy tips of soot-black hair bending unhappily over the smoking bowl. His unwashed beak was pinched between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. An unnatural grinding sound was radiating from his mouth.

Hermione stepped cautiously towards him. "P-professor Snape?"

Snape, very slowly, rose up from the cauldron, a comfortable smirk settled on his face. "Miss Granger," he said, low. "How nice of you to find time in your busy schedule for this little expedition."

The girl gave him a queer look but said nothing. Instead, she was busied with collecting several vials of ingredients as the professor motioned irritably towards them. Hermione brought them to their work table. "It's wolf hair tonight, isn't it, professor?"

Snape gave her an incredulous look. "How have you found the time to study, Miss Granger?" he mocked. "You've been rather _occupied_ as of late."

"Professor?"

_What the hell is he talking about? _she thought.

He leaned closer towards her until she could smell his neck-it smelt of sulfur. She thought only the devil could smell like that. Or Voldemort.

"Perhaps yourself and _Professor _Lupin might find it prudent to steer clear of dark corners beneath staircases." His lips seemed to coil—they threatened to strike.

Hermione was piqued. Color drained from her face and pooled red and warm into her stomach. Her hands trembled like her breath.

"Is something the matter, Miss Granger?" Snape returned casually to the potion. "I had quite got the impression that you were an exhibitionist."

The girl said nothing. What was there to say? She could not defend herself nor justify her actions to someone as colorless as Snape. What good would come of her declaring her love for Remus? It would only serve to amuse the insufferable git.

"Leave me." Snape retreated into his work. "Your effects are on the last table—there." His gaze flickered quickly onto a black bag near the door. "Take them. They're bothersome trinkets."

Hermione lingered for a second more, only to have Snape ignore her completely. She bit her lip. Hesitantly, she turned and left, taking care to retrieve the bag. She did not run or cry. She did not give him the satisfaction.

----

Dumbledore placed his old, heavy hands on the desk. His sigh was a gust of wind through the tangle of his beard. "Arthur, my dear boy, what are you proposing?"

Arthur fiddled with his cap as he sat in the chair before the headmaster's desk, the evening stars visible in the small, castle window. Candlelight gave the room a warm and constant glow. "There are ways, Albus," he said, "but I do not think that they are much better. Perhaps if Harry—"

"You are quite aware of Harry's predicament," Albus stated. He could see the soft glow of embarrassment on the ragged Minister's cheeks. "And, while Ronald would have made a fine choice, I am also aware that you do not have the capability yet, friend."

Arthur's jaw tensed. "Damn the law, Albus. I do not see why loans cannot be made."

"The choices of our ancestors may seem inappropriate at times," replied the old man, "but it has always been our job to update our laws. The fault is our own, I'm afraid."

"Lucius is mad." Arthur stood. He seemed to be twitching in every joint as he circled the office and paused as a shadow before the fireplace. "What is it about her, Albus? Why does Lucius seek his revenge on her?"

Albus pushed up from the chair, his body clearly defiant against the sudden movement. His bones felt hollow and porous. "I'm afraid you know the only solution, Arthur. I am aware of your particular feelings regarding Se—"

"He's a bastard, Albus." Arthur froze, shutting his eyes in apology. "I mean to say... She does not deserve to be put in _that _situation just as she does not deserve to belong to Lucius."

"No, she does not." Albus crossed the carpet towards the fire, his arms behind him. He peered from his spectacles to the orange glow and to the man beside him. "But I believe, Arthur, that _he _does."

----

Severus watched.

Her eyes were heavy, the lids forming a perfect crescent moon. The nightgown was white against her fair skin-she appeared soft and magical. The spell was stronger this time. The urge to wear the slippers and the earrings before the vanity mirror drew her from sleep and into this peaceful state between reality and dream. The box was placed before her with the carvings of the Catholic siège

_Damn her_, he thought as he held the repaired mirror.

Unfortunately for Severus, there was only one man to hate for this, beside himself. She could no more be blamed for seeking companionship than Severus could for seeking her.

_Thank God_, he thought,_ for only one more week_.


	11. Where Lovers Go and a White Dress

Hi, guys. :) It's been a while, I know, but it's been an extremely busy year for me. But...here it is! The latest chapter. Thanks to all of you that have kept reading and for all your support. I hope you guys enjoy.

----

"Ginny Weasley, there is no way in hell that I am wearing this dress."

Hermione turned before the full-length mirror, lips puckered distastefully. Her eyes bent in a dissatisfied arch.

Ginny sighed. She looked so old to Hermione. After Harry left her in their sixth year, six months became six years on Ginny's face. Small and dourly, she appeared to Hermione like some tragic widow-miles of epic sagas were written in her frown. The Juliet. The sad-eyed lover. The ancient child in red hair and red, red freckles.

Hermione quickly regretted her imminent distaste in the dress. After all, Ginny had been the one to pick it out of the catalogue. And as simple as transfiguration may seem from a dictionary, it was really quite a feat to transfigure an entire gown-the dress would have to remain mostly as it came.

Ugly.

Duck-yellow.

It had slitted, short sleeves and strips of long, tattered sequence rayon. Hermione hated rayon.

Her grandmother had been an accomplished seamstress and had taught her granddaughter the therapy of sewing. _Thank god for small, non-magical favors,_ Hermione thought as she ripped away a particularly long tail of sequencey material.

Ginny gasped. "What are you doing?" She demanded.

Hermione cringed. _Damn_. Ginny was her friend and here she was ripping away at the dress the other girl had picked out for her. Ripping the fabric like Harry ripped her. Wonderful. Just perfect.

"It...it looks a lot different than it did in the catalogue, Ginny. I think they may have mixed up the orders." _Yeah. Sure. Great lie, genius. _

Her mind briefly flashed on a now enormously regretted scene. Hermione busied with her studies and Ginny rambling on about some wonderful new evening wear catalogue she had got on the mail.

_I'll order your Ball Gown from there, okay? Hermione? Look at this one._

"Great, Ginny," Hermione had said, not even bothering to look up from her copy of _Goblins and You: The Story of a Misunderstood, and Rather Smelly, Creature._

_Fuckity-fuck-fuck!_

Ginny frowned. Her eyes looked like heavy sacks. "Oh. Well-"

"Would you put your own touch on it, Ginny? I mean...I would love to have you fi-I mean, add to the design." Hermione gave the girl a tentative smile. "I always love what you pick out, Ginny."

Ginny seemed to contemplate this. Carefully, she slipped her hand across the bodice of the gown, feeling the satin. _What person puts satin and rayon together?_ A small, unfamiliar smile spread across her lips. It looked like a memory to Hermione-a moving magical photograph. It had been so long since she had seen the girl smile.

Ginny crossed her arms and looked towards Hermione. She was cynical. Smiling and cynical. "I'll fix the dress, Hermione. I know you hate it-don't lie! We can sew it together. Here, hand me those pinking sheers in that drawer over there. We have...six hours before the dance. Up to it?"

----

Candles danced unstrung in the ceiling space above laughing and the smell of fruit punch in the Great Hall. Robes were buffed and starched and heels painfully bitting into ankles-some of the younger girls danced barefoot-lonely on the cool tile. It was bright and pretty. The sounds of chatter filled little empty spaces in-between the band's selections of jazz and the current popular tunes. The children looked grown-up. The grown-ups danced like children and everyone gleamed magnetically in the rows and rows of candlelight.

Remus Lupin took a corner to himself. He wore his only pair of wool dress robes and tweed slacks. A peasant shirt peaked beneath the gray material. He was twitching in it anxiously. Tonight! Tonight! His head screamed the mantra. _Tonight, tonight, tonight! _In a room of eyes. Tonight, he would express his feelings to the girl. Bare. Striped away of all the implications of professor and adult and werewolf. The raw materials of his care for the girl had to be exposed.

And so, nervously, he twitched. He stood. He sat. He paced in a very small patch of tile. He crossed his arms. Right over left. Left over right. Left. Right. Sweeping back his hair. Left. Right. Left. Twitching and moving and stressing like a madman. _Where was she?_ Would she show up? She had to! Remus hadn't spoken to her recently, having just recovered from his latest midnight expedition. He touched a new scar on his neck. Forty-one scars. Line over line over line. Left. Right. Left. _Twitching!_

He looked up. She was there.

Hermione stood at the entrance, arm-in-arm with Harry. Head Boy and Head Girl were required to make that peculiar entrance to an onslaught of applause. Clapping for their accomplishments and their fame. Students smiled at them-the symbol of all that was right and good with Hogwarts.

_Yellow_. Hermione wore a floor-length, yellow gown. Simplistic. Sleeveless and with a pretty, drooping back and no sequence. Remus watched the creamy-white of her shoulder blades as she peddled through the crowd. Harry graciously released her and retreated into the mass of bodies until Remus couldn't see him-not that he was even looking at Harry.

_Tonight, tonight!_ His courage hit him in the stomach with a baseball bat. He lunged forward in the crowd.

"Hermione..." he said as he approached. She turned and smiled, the crowd thick around them and occupied. Cautiously, she came towards him, hands fidgeting by her sides. No one seemed to pay them further attention-Harry had left.

"Hi," she said. Her cheeks pinked. Pretty brown waves fell down her breasts.

The sight of her filled him with breath. She was spectral. Her body moved when she was still and her eyes caught and refracted candlelight in hazel. His desire to touch her overtook him and he grasped her slender fingers in his palm.

"You look beautiful," he whispered.

Hermione's eyes settled determinedly on his mangled neck. "How do you feel?" she asked.

Remus gave a sideways little smile. The uneven, quirked corners of his moustache gleamed with perspiration. "Horrible," he said. Strangely, he recalled the brief scenario of Severus quickly depositing the Wolfsbane the few mornings before without even a casual insult. Odd. It occurred to him now without warning before evaporating quickly away.

Her eyes dropped sadly. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you, Hermione. Would you dance with me?"

Hermione looked around, nervously. "Do you think that's wise, Remus?"

Eyes on them. Remus had never enjoyed a whisper or a glance in his direction. To know that he might be the cause of it against Hermione unsettled him. There would be other opportunities for them in public-or so he hoped. "No," he agreed. "In my study. Do you think you can slip away?"

She smiled. He knew that she had never really liked dancing or the socialistic qualities of a party. Like him. Hermione gave him a short nod and a pat on his hand. "I'll see you in a minute," she said quietly and then dissolved into the weave of students.

Remus watched her go and then awed in the space of her absence. Her presence always lingered with him like the remnants of a dream. Slowly, sinking into reality, he turned and stalked gratefully out of the Great Hall. Out of the noise and the people and into the dark hall he could hear only his footsteps echoing across the polished wood. His body was weary and hungry to be against the warmth of Hermione. He wanted to tell her that he loved her.

"Remus."

Remus turned, unaware, to the shadow behind him. "Albus?"

Albus moved across the shade of open window, letting his body solidify in the moonlight. The rich folds of his age seemed creased with worry. "Remus," he said, "come with me to my office-don't protest. Hermione will join us momentarily."

Remus was floored. _Damn that meddling old man_.

----

Hermione smiled.

"Wat's that all about?" the booming voice behind her inquired. Hagrid looked happily down at her, his crushed velvet robes and plaid tie buffed and soaked in musky cologne. "Smilin' like ye got yerself a secret ther, 'Erm_i_one."

Hermione covered her mouth and cleared her throat. What a sight it must have been to see the socially paralyzed book worm grinning deafly into thin air-smile spreading like static from each quirky corner. "Oh...nothing. A new book just-"

Hargrid paused her with a gentle hand, a knowing smile on his face. "I understand. Dumbledore's who sent me a'ter ye. Wants ya ta meet him in his office."

_Damn._ Her body had already been anticipating the sway of Remus' step with her own. She desperately hoped he would not take this as rejection. "All right, Hagrid. Thanks."

_Dammit, dammit, dammit! _

----

The young boy sat against a mop stand, feeling the stains from the ancient muck seep into his fine robes-or, rather, robes that were once fine-tailored and fashionable. Now, they were mended by unlearned hands with pieces of scrap cotton thread. Draco was only grateful that his father had gotten his own private room before discovering his son's _strange_ taste so that he may mend his wardrobe in private. As well, Draco had replaced his expensive hair oils and shampoos with scraps of candle wax and his broom, which had once done sixty laps around the castle quarters in under a minute, was remorsefully chopped into quill bits and flinders of firewood. With the aid of a student's magic, Draco lived literally on pennies.

Harry, meanwhile, lived on the kindness of that bothersome Weasley. The family that once pinched each pound into a hearty banquet sustained the wizarding protege. No one knew that he was poor-Harry hated charity nearly as much as Draco, although he was not seen whittling his broom into driftwood.

Draco sighed and heard soft knocks on the broom closet door.

"Who is worthy to enter my palace?" Draco said softly, making a steeple of his fingertips as he sat and he watched the door.

Harry pushed through the entrance, allowing the pitiful space to briefly become illuminated by the candlelight spilling from the Great Hall into the crevice of the hallway closet, and then darkened once more by their solitary gloom. "I'm not worthy," Harry whispered softly as he leaned forward in the space between them to plant the slightest kiss on his lover's chin.

"Nor am I," Draco answered. His hands were discovering the layers of fabric on Harry's chest, then bravely sweeping them aside. They embraced. Patched satin on satin. Their mouths explored dark tunnels and each tongue the slightest damp crevice of the other. Slowly, Draco pulled back from the kiss and sighed a warm breath against Harry's neck. He loved the taste of Harry's skin. "No one else would have you, you know," he said. His hands gripped harshly at Harry's chest, pinching inward at the nipple.

Harry gave a sweet gasp. "Dance with me," the dark-haired boy said.

Draco sneered. "Such the woman," he remarked as he placed Harry's hand in his own and pushed against his hips to start their slow and rythmic rocking.

He loved Harry. He loved to tousle his black hair as he slept and kiss his body gently beneath the warmth of their covers. He loved to tease him and roughly push him into submission with insults and the force of his own, lithe body. Harry belonged to him and, sometimes, he to Harry. And though they could see nothing of the other in the darkness of the closet, they danced and felt their bodies slide together as if in an obtuse little puzzle until nothing of the world around them remained.

----

There was _no one _there.

Odd. The little office felt foreign without the Headmaster. In the absence of firelight or candlelight or even the assistance of a scanty little crescent moon, Hermione sensed the darkness saturating her skin and swimming darkly around in her bloodstream until she felt a part of it-absence. Nothingness.

Instinctively, she held her wand at arm's length and watched it flicker into light. Dumbledore's study stood before her, unscathed by the dark. Fawkes sang sourly on his post, decrepit feathers crumbling onto the floor. Objects glittered the light on his desk and on his shelves. Portraits muttered at the sudden intrusion.

Hermione moved from the door towards the small couch. She was certain the light mechanism in the study was activated by some sort of spell, though she was not sure which one.

Quickly she jumped back, her calves bitting painfully into the far book shelf.

"H-hello?"

She moved the light up towards the sofa, watching it settle in a sheen across the white object. Slowly, revealing the legs of the lounge, the cushions, and finally the back, bathed in the ivory glare of the _thing_. It sat-the arms reaching for someone. Fabric rolling in waves down the dark upholstery. No body.

_Oh God._ It was a beautiful wedding dress.


	12. The First Touch of Something Odd

Author's Note - Just a quick note, guys. If there's something you don't understand, bear with me. I know it's kind of annoying, but I'm trying to reveal things very slowly, here, and I might have to go back and re-explain some things. Thank you so much for keeping up this far and for all the wonderful comments. Most importantly, thank you very, very, very much to my lovely beta-reader, without whom, this story would be nothing!

…..

ShadowDragonWings - Thanks. :) Glad you like it.

Silverfalcon - Thank you for the wonderful comment. I do try to keep the characters as canon as possible, especially Snape, which, in regards to the romantic aspect of the story, is difficult.

Rinny08 - I promise that Remus will become less and less the center of romantic attention. I really appreciate your continued reading of my story. It's nice to have such great readers.

Michael de Lupin - As always, I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter. :)

-----

The lights flickered on.

"I see that you have found it,"said Arthur Weasley in a low and non-distinct voice. It was not his own-not the hand-me-down Weasley tone that spread warmth and affection like sweet butter. It did not speak of sooted fireplaces, woolen socks, and dented, lusterless teapots. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I wish that it might be any other way."

He looked to Hermione like he carried a paperweight on each shoulder.

"Mr. Weasley?"

He leaned haphazardly against the fireplace. She looked up at his aged, lovelorn face and requiems of fairy picture books with the sad, fat elf settled around her. She was shocked to see him there. She did not expect him to be a man that could settle so easily in shadow.

"It's a terrible situation, my dear," he said. He walked towards her, tea cup in hand. The little porcelain pan rattled in his wake. "Dreadful. Dumbledore has assured me that this is the best way, but...my dear, just a child!" Arthur slumped against the wide, wooden desk, the red bags beneath his eyes sagging farther.

Hermione's mind began to race with curiosity. Sickening curiosity. It was a compulsive interest marred by the sinking, nauseating feeling that, curious or not, she would not like the outcome of this mystery. "Mr. Weasley? Are you all right?" She stepped cautiously towards him. "What...what's going on? I don't..."

"Arthur."

Hermione turned towards the familiar voice, gladdened by the sight of the Headmaster stepping out of that precarious shadow he seemed to conjure. Here was a man she trusted to sort out this curious mess. And then...the raggedly wonderful sloping shoulders of her professor. Lupin looked as nervous and as puzzled as she felt.

_Oh, shit_, were the first words that came to mind. "Headmaster, I..." Nervously, she looked to Remus. Remus met her eyes and sighed. Something clicked. _They were caught. _"It isn't what...I mean-"

"My dear," Albus raised a hand to quiet her, "I am fully aware of the relations between yourself and Professor Lupin. Were it under normal circumstances, I would be forced to reprimand you both for your inappropriate actions. However, as I am about to reveal to you both, it may very well be the lesser of the well-intentioned crimes committed here tonight."

Her face was starch as parchment. He knew. _Merlin_, of course he knew! Dumbledore _was_ Hogwarts. He lived between the cracks in the stone wall and his ears were the ears of a thousand hallway portraits. Heat flared behind the back of her neck and in the crevice of her temples. Remus' cheeks were as red as his hair.

"I think," came Arthur's quivering voice, "that it might do us all a bit of good to sit down."

_Certainly for you, Mr. Weasley,_ Hermione thought, selecting a seat across from the white gown. Remus sat beside her. Perhaps he thought it useless not to, and took her hands into his as further acknowledgment. Arthur sprawled into a nearby armchair. Perhaps tea was not the only ingredient to his cup, Hermione thought.

Albus crossed quietly towards the antiqued gown, flicking his wand-wrist so that the dress began to fold itself, rather daintily, and then it chose an empty corner of the Headmaster's desk to settle neatly on. The Headmaster took its place on the sofa.

An uneasy silence settled on the four. Hermione could feel the strange quality about the room much the way a muggle could sense tension or sadness. It was by that unnamed sensory receptor that is so innately human that made them able to believe in the non-peripheral.

"Headmaster, who's gown is that?" _Simple_, she thought. Best to start simple. Flashes rose through her mind of gross possibilities. Dead parents began to climb high atop the list. Then dead Harry. Dead Ron.

"That, Miss Granger, once belonged to Lenora Viviana Alexandrina Slytherin."

"Salazar's wife," Remus added, seeming to ease a bit of his tension by exercising the unemotional, logical matter of his brain. Hermione recognized the tactic because it was a familiar one to her.

Albus gave a short nod. "It was one of three great possessions which Lenora held in high regard. The items were gifts from her rather doting husband which held the tremendous power of protection of the wearer."

Hermione had a difficult time picturing any Slytherin as doting.

The Headmaster paused, crescent eyes faltering as they un-often did. "Miss Granger, I should like to remind you that the other two items which Lenora loved were a pair of pearl earrings in an adorned wooden box and two quite remarkable slippers. The potion that you and Professor Snape attempted to brew would have only served to explain the properties of their protection. I am afraid I am no expert on the subject."

She stiffened. The plot thickened. It reminded her faintly of muggle Clue. The mystery began to slowly unravel itself like a complex, woven tapestry. Mrs. White. The candlestick. So forth and onward.

Hermione could think of nothing to say. It was nonsensical. Remus, as well, said nothing.

Albus turned, defeated, and glanced to Arthur. Arthur reciprocated and sagged further into the chair. "Hermione," the Minister began, "I have news of a rather...distressing nature. It is quite true that Lucius attacked your parents, regardless of our inability to hold him accountable. However...I'm afraid that he has formulated a more terrible plan at your expense."

Hermione paled. The crushing of Remus' teeth could be heard across the room. "What is it, Mr. Weasley?" she inquired faintly.

Arthur shifted and leaned closer towards her in the manner of sharing secrets. "There is a law, Hermione, that was written centuries ago in a time where the persecution of muggle-born witches and wizards was running so violent and rampant that only extreme measures could be taken. Muggle families were slaughtered and muggle-born witches...tortured, Hermione, in unspeakable ways. This law decreed that any witch under the age of twenty-five whose parents were incapacitated to make such decisions of marriage could be..." Arthur bitterly hesitated against the next word, "..._claimed_ by a man from a family established, by name, from a pureblood, respected lineage. Only a marriage to such a man would be accepted. As well, a large dowery was to be paid by the suitor to the Ministry of Magic."

Some hot terror settled in the bottom crease of her stomach. Hermione could foresee the bitter end of the fairy tale.

"Hermione," Arthur continued, blatant remorse in his eyes, "this law has been neglected for many years and, as such, almost forgotten...until Lucius mentioned it to me just weeks ago. Hermione, he intends to claim you for his bride."

"This will _not_ happen," Remus spat venomously, clutching Hermione to his warm chest. "I will not allow it." Desperation clasping at his face, the Professor looked pointedly to Albus. "My family's name has been established in the pureblood records. I have a small fortune to which I can offer the Ministry. I will marry her. It will be against your basic policy, I know, but at least I can offer her my protection."

Tears began to well in Hermione's eyes. It was a wretched and happy moment. Merlin help her, the ideal of marriage, even to Remus, bewildered her.

"Remus," Albus began, sadness in his voice. "My friend, the law specifies the as to the quality of human in the suitor. You know that the Ministry still certifies you as an animal species."

Remus cringed. Instinct begged Hermione to clutch him closer to her. "_Damn your Ministry,_" Remus sneered, the foundation of his body trembling. "_Is there no other way to-"_

"Calm yourself, Remus." Albus stood and folded his hands neatly across his stomach. "We will not allow Lucius to complete his plan. There is an alternative."

Hermione's eyes settled on the wedding dress. A burst of adrenaline spread through her-a sickening feeling. Unknowingly, her fingers twisted and bit painfully into Remus' grip. He did not notice. "Headmaster," she said, through brandished tears, "what is the alternative?"

Albus said nothing.

"What they are quite loathed to tell you, Miss Granger, is the rather _unappealing_ nature of the alternative." Arthur's hands gripped tightly on the chair cushions as Severus Snape emerged from some unseen, darkened corner of the room, his arms crossed like an upright bat and barring the same disposition. He sneered haughtily at the Minister, lips curling into the unhappy wrinkles of his face.

"What the hell have _you_ got to do with this, Snape?" Remus barked, turning to give the professor a dark look.

Severus raised a single eyebrow. "More than you know, Lupin." His eyes settled daringly on Hermione, who, in turn, felt weaker than she had in months. The yellow billows of her gown seemed alluring like the soft turns in a warm blanket; the evening's events took on a dream-like quality. Severus continued until he very near her, black robes brushing with duck yellow. "I believe it is quite time to finish the proposal, Headmaster," he said.

Albus sighed and gave Severus a short nod. "My dear," he began, crossing towards Hermione, his eyes warming at her youth, "the most solid plan to protect your safety lies in the marriage between yourself and a trusted candidate which fits the requirements by law. Unfortunately, there are so few these days carrying a family name which can be traced to fairly pureblood ancestors. I am determined that you should stay within the Order's members, for that would offer you the most protection. Therefore, there is only one tangible choice."

Hermione could feel the heat radiating from Remus as he spoke. "_Snape._"

"My, your brilliance is becoming, Lupin." Severus quirked the corner of his lips in a near grimace.

Remus leapt from the back of the couch, posture curled like the creature that only the moon knew. His wand was in his to hand, as was Severus' drawn, and so they stood facing one another, tense and ready to strike.

"_Remus!_" Hermione jumped up from her place, only to be held back by Arthur's surprising grip. She struggled, futilely, cheeks saturated with tears.

"I warned you, _Lupin_," Severus growled. "You should have had nothing to do with her."

"You will have nothing to do with her, _Snape_, after I rip your heart out!" Remus lunged at him.

"_EXPELLIARMUS!" _

Remus spiraled backwards in the air, body and wand flying into the solid wall behind them. Albus sighed and replaced his wand in his pocket. He looked pressed to preform the spell. Still struggling, Arthur deterred Hermione from escaping his hold. "No, my dear, you mustn't." The old Minister's voice shook with the strain of her sadness.

"Get out, Remus," Albus demanded firmly.

Remus managed to stand, reaching for his wand once more. He nursed an injured wrist. Tears trailed down his cheeks.

"Please," said Albus. The Headmaster looked pained."Go to your rooms. I will take care of Hermione."

Hermione let out a frustrated cry. "_Remus!"_ She shook with her tears, buckling against Arthur's hold and finally into his fatherly arms for comfort.

Remus breathed vigorously. He looked to her and trembled. Warmth spilled from his skin. "I love you," he said and limped out of the office.

-----

Severus Snape felt wretchedly helpless. Hermione lay in the arms of the pitiful Weasley, crying mournfully-keening like a child. Her slight body shook and rocked violently against Arthur. "Shhhh," cooed the Weasley father, stroking her free hair and touching her fetching jaw. Taking _his_ place as her comforter and protector.

No. Severus knew the child saw him as nothing more than a callous, old bastard. Why shouldn't she? Wasn't that exactly what he presented to her these last six years? He would have to reinvent himself to gain her affections. Love, he dared not hope for. That was a subject out of any mortal hands.

"Remus, Remus," she muttered over and again, ugly tears on her pretty face. Arthur settled them both back into his chair, letting her sprawl into his lap as she quieted her fussing. "There, there," he cooed gently.

Albus rubbed his temples fiercely. "I fear we have done the worst, Severus," he said.

The dark professor regarded him cooly, sliding his wand back into the folds of his cloak. "Are my affections really so terrible, Headmaster?" he asked darkly.

The elder man sighed. "No, Severus. I am quite aware of the genuine nature of your care for Miss Granger. I only mean to say that-"

"I'm quite aware of what you meant to say, Headmaster," Severus interjected. His eyes grew darker as if under the passing of a shadow.

Carefully, he moved towards Hermione as she lay exhausted and unaware in Arthur's arms. The Weasley began to protest though Severus silenced him by placing a finger to his lips. "I'm going to place her under a Sleeping Spell," he said and then began to whisper strange words into the pretty flesh of her ear.

-----

Darkness. Faint Darkness. The familiar outline of a vanity table and the canopy of the Head Girl's bed. Moonlight filtered through the thin curtains of her window, reminiscent of sleepless nights in the comfort of her dorm. Such a horrible dream had only just released its hold of her and the urge to confess her troubles to Remus moved her to stir from the warmth of the charmed comforter. She felt lightheaded.

"_Where are you going?"_

The voice startled her as she made a desperate leap towards her night stand for the familiar grip of her wand. It was gone.

Sparks ignited from the tip of a wand, illuminating a dark and staunch face. Professor Snape peered unfeelingly back at her from his perch in a chair beside the bed.

_Fuck!_ Hermione grasped quickly at the covers and pulled them tight around her body. The dream pealed away to a harsh memory blotted by a mysterious darkness at its end. She noticed that she was in a nightgown and that disturbed her.

"You have been under the affects of a Sleeping Spell. I suggest you do not make any sudden movements or you might exhaust yourself." He settled smugly into the chair, the light reflecting shadows from his angular face.

Hermione swallowed with great difficulty to whisper a harsh, "_Illuminate_," which allowed light to flicker from a candle chandelier above the crimson canopy. Snape's wand promptly went out. She studied him in surprise. Never had she seen her professor so lax, almost as if he'd been comfortably nodding off while waiting for her to awaken. He looked almost peaceful, then, in the gentle candlelight.

She wondered briefly how unruly her hair was.

Severus seemed equally puzzled on how to begin the conversation. "I trust that you do not find the proposed arrangement agreeable," he said, bitterness creeping into the corners of his words.

Hermione felt very numb at that moment and, being at such a strange junction, could allow the logical parts of her brain a moment to mull over the events. "I...I'm not quite sure, professor," she said, decidedly. "It is surely better than the alternative. But..."

She paused. How does one explain to a strictly lurid professor the desires of a young girl's heart regarding the perfect wedding? The happily-ever-after marriage and all that was associated with it? She would have to remain bound to him by the ties of his last name and the connotations concerning it in a loveless union.

And Remus. Merlin, how Remus did object to such a pairing. Certainly he'd cooled off, much the same as she, and began to consider it in way of practicality. It would prevent them from having any desirable type of relationship, that was for sure, but certainly love would prevail. Or perhaps she was being too naive and girlish once more.

Thoughts were spinning in her head again and she felt much like a merry-go-round might. Spinning without cause or end.

Professor Snape produced a short sort of sound, much like a grunt, though less primitive in nature. "There is another piece to the proposal, Miss Granger," he said, sliding his wand back into its pocket. "Along with the marriage dowery, I should provide an additional, sizable amount of funds for the bride's personnel use."

A bribe? What should a bribe do? Hermione was not in any sort of way for money.

Professor Snape began to accumulate that veneer of arrogance he used so lavishly in the classroom. "Perhaps if I might make a suggestion-I believe that young Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy are in search of such a fund for their future...arrangements."

Hermione gaped openly at Snape. _How could he have known?_ It was the best kept secret in Hogwarts, discounting her recent relations with Remus. The pair hadn't let on that either of them was gay, nor that they were together, and certainly not of their future plans to wed, should they ever gain the necessary funds.

Harry. Her dear friend. He sacrificed everything that he owned so that the world they now loved could live in freedom. And Draco, too, gave up his family fortune and pride for the tattered scraps of good. Here, she was offered a chance to make their only dream come true.

Gods be with her, Hermione could not ignore their happiness-not when they had sacrificed more than she was about to for so many others.

"I...I could never raise such a fortune in any fair amount of time," she said. "Nor could Draco or Harry." Her eyes began to well with tears once more. It felt so strange, giving up a part of her that even she couldn't place. Her name. Her family's name. Was that all she was to be surrendering? She didn't know. All she knew was that she could not deny her friends the love they so wished to declare.

"I...I must accept." She felt defeated. Confused. It was the right thing, wasn't it? All around, it was for the best?

Snape shot quickly to the balls of his feet. He looked...strange. Something other than hatred or arrogance stormed within his black eyes. "Do you?" he asked. His voice held a strange quality. Excitement? She couldn't tell.

He held out his hand to her. "It's a magical contract...Hermione."

Her name sounded odd on his tongue.

"It's binding."

She bit her lip. Thoughts went whirling and buzzing around her brain. Upwards. Downwards. Across and back. And all she could think of as she shook his hand was something that had not before occurred to her. What did Professor Snape seek to gain from this?

-----

Severus lounged heavily in the Queen Anne chair, his body radiating the exhaustion he felt. A fire cooled on black embers in the fireplace, the only diminishing light within the dungeon bedroom. He was entranced by his own thoughts. Of course, he knew that he had cornered the girl into the arrangement. Her thoughts were still muddled by the Sleeping Spell, and the proposition of her friends' abiding happiness has served well to sway her into Severus' trap. Desperation and a staggering lack of alternative options had prompted his merciless hunt. He was validating his own immorality.

An empty vial of headache potion lay beside an empty bottle of vodka. Severus sat in an artificial daze, his blood mixing with the liquor and the cooling sensation of the evaporation of sweat from the back of his neck. A thumb ground into his temple.

Before, when Hermione had been sleeping, he had sat there, awkwardly, gazing around at the pretty room, eyes lingering on moving portraits of Hermione, Harry, and Ron and the stiff figures he had assumed to be her parents. He wondered how that would fair, after her parents awoke from their stupor. Hermione did not seem close to them, from what he understood.

He had watched her chest rise and fall. He had felt the familiar stirring between his legs which had driven him to masturbate, there, as she slept, complementing the rhythm of her delicate breathing. Picturing her beneath him, being taking slowly to the sensation of the pressure inside her, he stifled moans.

He pondered her, too, as she slept. He mulled, again, over his obsession. He calculated reason and the process of this endeavor. Knowing Lucius, too, had kept given him immense opportunity. He knew his thoughts, tasteless as they were. The only way Malfoy knew how to handle women was by dominating them. In the wizarding world, there was no better way to dominate a woman than to marry her. It was an old system, still, and charmingly frightening. Severus knew he would make such a move, even without his subtle probes of Occlumency. Before Albus, even, he was aware.

Albus. The man was so obnoxious. Severus had given his life to Albus' cause, quite literally, placing it the hands of chance through dealing with the most dangerous endeavors and still he was reluctant to allow him the chance to pursue his deepest desire, even as it coincided with Hermione's best interest. It was quite true that Severus was the best candidate for a protective marriage; it was coincidence which made it particularly rewarding for Severus.

He longed to see her in the wedding gown. He desired to hear her pleasurable screams just as well as he desired their quite and intelligent conversations over books and potions articles. He admired his shimmering lioness-proud, brilliant, loyal, just, beautiful. She would suit him. She would provoke his mind and his body. She would provide a testament for the morality which he so blindly protected in his years as a spy. And, Merlin, how he wished to fire the spirit between her legs. She was a virgin. He knew. He could feel it when he watched a blush spread across her cheek. He delighted in that he would be her first-her teacher.

The vodka numbed him.

Finally, he slept.

-----

Professor Snape had left quickly, and without word.

Hermione sat, dazed, hand buzzing with the unfamiliar touch.

Quietly, she began to cry at the process of a strange thought: that was the first time her future husband had ever willfully touched her.

-----

Author's Note - Was this REALLY the first time he had every touched her meaningfully? Who knows. . 


	13. Velvet

**Author's Note**:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like to apologize for my extended absence from this story. Many of you have written words of encouragement (and even demands), and for that I thank you. With this chapter, I bring you another continuation of _We Who Were Made to Love_. I must apologize, for such a time lapse has left me much farther from the heart of the plot than I previously was. Thus, if there are some contradictions within the story, please bring them _nicely_ to my attention while recognizing that I am not attempting to be careless-I simply just haven't been involved with the story for a long while.

As well, if my lovely beta-reader (to whom I give much apologizes and dedicate this chapter to) would like to continue to edit further chapters, please contact me at . She has been the best critique of my writing thus far. However, if she would wish not to, and I would certainly understand if she did, I would ask that any applicants that wish to beta-read please contact me at that e-mail address, as well.

Once again, I apologize for my absence, and I hope that this chapter is up to previous standards. Thank you!

**Warnings**: Obviously, this is only HBP compliant. I do not own these characters; but, if I did, I'd be a lot richer.

* * *

Hermione Granger was studying feverishly for her N.E.W.T.s. She sat in an armchair in her bedroom, papers strewn across the floor-a pencil stuck haphazardly in her dilapidated bun. She had been excused from classes the past three days, allowing her time to study for the examination that had been rescheduled for Friday, the last day of classes, and only two days away. She alone would be sitting for the exam with the Headmaster presiding over the procedures. If she did satisfactorily enough (and, _oh_, she could not stand the thought of it otherwise), she would be allowed to graduate, then and there, freeing Severus Snape from any charges of wrong-doing in the business of their marriage. Which, by the way, would be taking place exactly ten days from that very day of her studying escapade-Christmas Day.

However, she could not allow herself to think of that now. Now, she was studying, textbooks piling across her lap. Every subject was rattling in her brain (except Potions, which she could not yet bear to study). She felt her eyelids close into a half-moon, and then shook herself awake. "Can't sleep yet," she muttered, pouring strong, hot tea from her little porcelain kettle into the cup. It made her think bitterly of Remus. Tears began to slip down her tired cheeks, spilling onto the pages of her text book. Her lip trembled as she forced herself to mouth the spells she would have to write from memory; words washed ink down the page from the rain of her tears.

"_Hermione_?"

A voice came timidly from the doorway, bathing Harry Potter in a semi-glow of candles about their joint common room. He appeared to her hesitant, something seething darkly behind his eyes.

"Come in," she said, attempting a half smile.

He moved cautiously through the room, as if not to disturb the sanctity of her studies. As he sat on her bed, his crooked smile flashed briefly, one obnoxious strand of hair moving between his eyes. _This is the messy boy that I love_, Hermione thought, bringing some happiness to her otherwise listless mood.

"H-how is the studying going?" he asked, penetrating the silence with his haphazard thought. He brushed some imaginary dust off his arm, reluctant to catch her eye. He was embarrassed, Hermione could see that. Doubtlessly, his nights had been spent dreaming up ways to muck with Professor Snape (much, Hermione wagered, to Draco's dismay). Though Dumbledore, as Harry had confided to her the previous night, had confronted the boy outright about his plans for revenge. Harry, ever the disobedient child, could not bare, however, to defy the man he considered most parental of all and who had just arisen from the dead, so to speak. He would think about it, though. Hermione did not think she could bare to have those sorts of images in her head, even though she might have been inclined to look the other way, for once.

"It's fine." She spoke as levelly as she could, hoping that her voice would not betray her. _Old habits die hard_, she thought, almost sourly. Harry, most often, had been the one to whom she felt protective-motherly even. As mothers do, she did not want him to see her in despair; just the thought made her uncomfortable. They had shared fights, victories, homework, crushes, lewd jokes, and even the occasional defeat, but letting Harry see her spirits down was another matter entirely.

Harry seemed to grapple with something. His outwardly quite demeanor spoke volumes of the battle inside. To speak or not to speak? The ultimate question.

"Hermione," he began.

She moved to dismiss his words, but he protested, holding her outstretched hand in his. "Hermione, I know you don't want to talk about this. Ever since I learned about it two days ago, I can't shut it out of my head. I know that it's uncomfortable for you to talk about, but I'm your friend and I-"

He could not continue. A certain bushy-headed girl had finally collapsed in his lap with sobs, spilling her books and papers to the floor and collapsing her knees along with them. Harry held her head in his lap, stroking her cheek and giving her comfort as he could. He reacted with such maturity that Hermione could only wail with more intensity. Seeing that he had not shied away from her episode only gave her the courage to continue.

"I don't want to do this..." she wailed in the eerie tones of one completely bested by their grief. Her hands clenched and unclenched into fists, releasing rage and submission both.

"Then don't," Harry said, bending over to shield her with his body as she cried, her head in his lap and her legs on the floor. "We'll take you somewhere else. You and me and Draco will just leave-we'll go to America or Russia. It doesn't matter. Anywhere that that stupid law doesn't affect us."

Hermione shook her head, her tears ebbing. "No, Harry. We can't do that." She wiped her nose against her sleeve with gusto. "I hate this idea-I _hate_ it so much, but I can't leave. My parents are here. My life is here. I love Hogwarts-I want to _teach_here someday." Thinking about Remus' promise made her face suddenly contort with violent hurt, but she contained her tears. "You want to be an Auror-I know you don't, please don't lie. It's something that you and Ron both have dreamed about ever since you were boys. And Ron! You know that we would both miss Ron desperately. No, Harry, I have to do this. I have to-"

She stopped, the very words of her action giving her pause.

"-marry Snape."

* * *

Severus Snape _detested _shopping. Or rather, Severus Snape detested any activity which involved both the interaction of the outside world and the transaction of money. He frowned (consistently) as he passed by the windows of shops, his abnormally large nose leaving a trail of white breath against the glass-which, of course, irritated him further. Delving his hands into the pocket of his overcoat, he paused before a particular window, trying to the ignore the reflection his shadowy figure left upon the wares inside.

_Interesting enough_, he thought, stepping inside the door with a pleasant ring of some overhead bell, setting his nerves on edge.

"May I help you this evening?" came the voice of the shopkeeper-a rather unimposing figure with a spare tire and bottle-rimmed glasses.

Snape dismissed him with a shake of his head, making it a point to peer importantly into the glass case before it.

At this moment, Hermione Granger should be completing her NEWTs with flying colors, he mused. The thought of her hunched little form over parchment, sweat beading on her brow as she berated herself again and again over something terribly innocuous-he could not help but ride the wave of pleasure her image brought him. Keeping evidence of this affair tucked completely within robes and overcoat, he busied himself with his shopping.

Pointing to something particularly sufficient, he waved to the shopkeeper.

"The gentleman has fine taste," remarked the owner, removing the object from its display case and setting it gently on a velvet cushion before the professor.

He scrutinized it, plucking it up from the fabric and shifting it around his long, delicate fingers. He was well-versed in the handling of precious objects, considering the number of them he had added to cauldrons over the years. Yes, he decided, that would suit her well.

As the shopkeeper calculated his purchase, placing it in a black satin case, Snape was inwardly pleased at the decision. He had been to several shops that morning, all efforts so far fruitless. But this, he decided, was a respectable piece that would suit his purpose well.

He thought quickly of other tasks that needed to be complete before tomorrow, though he was well on his way to being ready. Snape was never a man that liked to do things without a sufficient amount of planning, but the situation yielded itself to haste.

Soon, he though, his eyes hazing. Soon he would have what had been brewing in his mind for years. His thoughts turned momentarily devious-her body flashing, skin against his skin, sweat between them, pleasant screams. He would need more robes before he could allow himself to go any further in public.

"Here you are, Sir." Severus Snape was given his trinket as he wished the gentleman a good day with a slight nod of his head. Leaving the shop, he tucked it within his robes, feeling a slight chill permeate him through the cloth.

_It will look so beautiful on her finger_, he thought. The image of her delicate, white hand sent another chill through him. This obsession was running him ragged. _No rest for the old man._

* * *

Remus Lupin lay on the couch in a daze. The full moon would be on him tomorrow.

He looked at his glass of bourbon. It seemed to look back at him, warm and inviting. He took a drink, feeling it trickle down his stubble. A pain ripped through his heart, but he did not react. All he could manage to do this week was lounge and drink, dismissed from classes by the headmaster and rendered totally confined to quarters until Hermione Granger's marriage the following day.

Slowly, it began to lull him to the place of half sleeping and half awareness. While there, the only thought that plagued him was this: why did this broken creature, too week and too cowardly to defend the love of his life, deserve to live any longer?

**Author's Note:** Hope that lives up to previous chapters. Please feel free to R&R.


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